Last week I began rereading Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems. It’s by the Palestinian poet, Ghassan Zaqtan. Straw Bird is translated into English by Palestinian doctor and poet, Fady Joudah.
I bought the book in 2013 after attending a reading of the shortlisted poets for the Griffin Poetry Prize in Toronto. The next day I was very happy to hear that Ghassan Zaqtan and Fady Joudah had won the international section of the prize. Their moving and powerful readings marked the beginning of my learning about Palestinian history and my reading of Arabic poetry in translation.
As the genocide of Palestinians continues, Ghassan Zaqtan’s poetry has new importance for me. From Straw Bird, here’s one of his poems, Wood Carving, and a drawing I made in 1994 that I recently came across in an old sketchbook.
Wood Carving
1
In the house of cactus
I finish what I started
2
a novel for death and the dead
and a chapter on bird matters
3
my house is my journey, the wind my door
and windows are what I saw
4
I lost my fortune
but kept my acumen
5
a blind man with sight by the falcon’s nest sculpts
my solitude so I’d be loved by a variety of selections
6
I cajoled hyenas and besides myself
trusted no one
7
I left no land to return to
and kept no road to arrive
8
when I came to
in the house of cactus
I had a full name and golden hands
“and untethered to remembrance
I was.”
Arts of May 