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Unfortunately, It Was Paradise
Mahmoud Darwish
Unfortunately,
It Was Paradise
Selected Poems
Translated and Edited by
Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché
(with Sinan Antoon and Amira El-Zein)
With a New Foreword by Fady Joudah
University of California PressBerkeley · Los Angeles · London
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2003, 2013 by The Regents of the University of California
ISBN: 978-0-520-27303-0
eISBN: 9780520954601
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Darwish, Mahmoud.
[Poems. English. Selections]
Unfortunately, it was paradise : selected poems / Mahmoud Darwish ; translated and edited by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché, with Sinan Antoon and Amira El-Zein.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-520-23754-4 (paper : alk. paper)
I. Akash, Munir. II. Forché, Carolyn. III. Title.
PJ7820.A7 A222003
892’.716—dc212002068454
Printed in the United States of America
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Holland Enviro100, a 100% post-consumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges
the generous contribution to this book
provided by the Lannan Foundation.
Pero yo ya no soy yo
Ni mi casa es ya mi casa.
But now I am no longer I,
nor is my house any longer my house.
Federico García Lorca
Contents
AcknowledgmentsMunir Akash
IntroductionMunir Akash and Carolyn Forché
Foreword for 2013Fady Joudah
from Fewer Roses (1986)
I Will Slog over This Road
Another Road in the Road
Were It Up to Me to Begin Again
On This Earth
I Belong There
Addresses for the Soul, outside This Place
Earth Presses against Us
We Journey towards a Home
We Travel Like All People
Athens Airport
I Talk Too Much
We Have the Right to Love Autumn
The Last Train Has Stopped
On the Slope, Higher Than the Sea, They Slept
He Embraces His Murderer
Winds Shift against Us
Neighing on the Slope
Other Barbarians Will Come
They Would Love to See Me Dead
When the Martyrs Go to Sleep
The Night There
We Went to Aden
Another Damascus in Damascus
The Flute Cried
In This Hymn
from I See What I Want to See (1993)
The Hoopoe
from Why Have You Left the Horse Alone? (1995)
I See My Ghost Coming from Afar
A Cloud in My Hands
The Kindhearted Villagers
The Owl’s Night
The Everlasting Indian Fig
The Lute of Ismael
The Strangers’ Picnic
The Raven’s Ink
Like the Letter “N” in the Qur’an
Ivory Combs
The Death of the Phoenix
Poetic Regulations
Excerpts from the Byzantine Odes of Abu Firas
The Dreamers Pass from One Sky to Another
A Rhyme for the Odes (Mu‘allaqat)
Night That Overflows My Body
The Gypsy Woman Has a Tame Sky
from A Bed for the
