NEW POETRY FROM PALESTINE ~

HAMID ASHOUR

Displaced Dog . . . Homeless Human

One night, a dog entered my house with a group of people who were fleeing the

bombing.  All left the next morning except the nameless dog.  As if he had lived

his whole life in his house and memorized its interior, he escaped the bedroom

for the backyard and the backyard for the roof in rhythm with the surrounding

raids.  He sat n the safest spot in the house before bombs startled him.  He

stayed with me from the beginning of the invasion.  We shared fear, barking,

shrapnel, and canned meat.  We shared the same fate, though I am not his

owner.  We went out sprinting and leaping nimbly among the shells, carrying

nothing but the housekey — barefoot, bare-hearted, our minds bare.  We made a

tent from old rags, reeds, and palm fronds.  We shared it like friends.  When one

of us slept to dream of return, the other guarded the dream and the road.

Gaza, 2024

NASSER RABAH

Nothing Kills Me, Nothing

I die slowly, oh Yiannis Ritsos,

Even slower, oh Nazim Hikmet.

From ancient times, the prisoners pass by asking, Do you remember?

Then I know who I am.

Empty prison, the dead pass by, waving to me.

I invite them into my museum of memory

Yet nothing kills me, nothing.

I die slowly, oh Federico Garcia Lorca,

Even slower, oh Muthaffar al-Nawab.

The timber contemplates itself in the extinguished fireplace.

A toothless ld man starts to sing, but his words jumble.

Daily, a street loses a door, a window.

Airplanes pass by overhead.

Yet nothing kills me, nothing.

I die slowly, oh Nasser Rabah,

Even slower, oh Pablo Neruda.

Two million messiahs ascend to God, barefoot and naked,

Holding out empty cooking pots, perturbing Rome's sleep.

They toss their children's names into the sky,

Until it is raining down song

On me, the keystone, touchstone, taproot of this place.

Yet nothing kills me, nothing.

Gaza 2024 

______________________________________

You Must Live

New Poetry From Palestine

translated & edited by

Tayseer Abu Odeh & Sherah Bloor

Copper Canyon Press, 2025

PABLO NERUDA ~

 from  The Book of Questions 

Why don't the immense airplanes

fly around with their children?

Which yellow bird

fills its nest with lemons?

Why don't they train helicopters

to suck honey from the sunlight?

Where did the full moon leave

its sack of flour tonight?

Is it true that voluptuous crocodiles

live only in Australia?

How do the oranges divide up

sunlight in the orange tree?

Did salt's teeth come

from a bitter mouth?

Is it true that a black condor

flies at night over my country?

Whom can I ask what I came

to make happen in this world?

Why do I move without wanting to,

why am I not able to sit still?

Why do I go rolling without wheels,

flying without wings or feathers,

and why did I decide to migrate

if my bones live in Chile?

And why is the sun such a bad companion

to the traveler's in the desert?

And why is the sun so congenial

in the hospital garden?

Are they birds or fish

in these nets of moonlight?

Was it where they lost me

that I finally found myself?

Why was I not born mysterious?

Why did I grow up without companions?

Who ordered me to tear down

the doors of my own pride?

And who went out to live for me

when I was sleeping or sick?

And which flag unfurled there

where they didn't forget me?

Can you love me, syllabary,

and give me a meaningful kiss?

Is a dictionary a sepulchre

or a sealed honeycomb?

In which window did I remain

watching buried time?

Or is what I see from afar

what I have not yet lived?

_________________________

Pablo Neruda

The Book of Questions

translated by William O'Daly

Copper Canyon Press, 2001

LUCILLE CLIFTON ~

 

won’t you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

_________________

Lucille Clifton

The Book of Light

Copper Canyon Press, 2023

TED KOOSER ~

 

At Dusk, In Decemeber

Driving a gravel road in the country

I saw a hawk fly up out of a ditch

with a mouse in its beak, and it flew

along beside my car for a minute,

the mouse still alive, its little legs

running as fast as they could, and there

we were, the three of us, all going

in the same direction, west, at just

a little under forty miles per hour.

____________________

Ted Kooser

Red Stilts

Copper Canyon Press

2021

VICTORIA CHANG ~

 

Obit

Language—died again on August
3, 2015 at 7:09 a.m. I heard about
my mother’s difficult nights. I hired
a night person. By the time I got
there, she was always gone. The
night person had a name but was like
a ghost who left letters on a shore
that when brought home became
shells. Couldn’t breathe, 2:33 a.m.
Screaming, 3:30 a.m. Calm, 4:24
a.m. I got on all fours, tried to pick up
the letters like a child at an egg hunt
without a basket. But for every letter
I picked up, another fell down, as if
protesting the oversimplification of
my mother’s dying. I wanted the night
person to write in a language I could
understand. Breathing unfolding,
2:33. Breathing in blades, 3:30.
Breathing like an evening gown,
4:24. But maybe I am wrong, how
death is simply death, each slightly
different from the next but the final
strike all the same. How the skin
responds to a wedding dress in the
same way it responds to rain.

___________________________

Victoria Chang

Obit

Copper Canyon Press

2020

LIU TSUNG-YUAN ~

R E A D      M E

Miscellany Presented In Reply To

Scholar Lou About To Leave For Huainan

I was sent far away to enjoy life alone

who would have guessed I would meet an old friend

taking pity on broken wings with kind words

soothing ragged fins with life-saving water

our feelings as colleagues haven't changed

but the joys of companionship are new

wandering without a goal wasting time

immune to the pains of spring dancing drunk

even if the pleasures of wind and moon have ceased

the stars and frost we've shared has brought us closer

treating fame as a calamity

we chose the Tao for our neighbor

our schemes were roof tiles in a storm

our suspicions simply misperceptions

wearing an official's hat I still write poems

despite your poverty you still carry a sword

suddenly our parting is today

this happy time won't come again

what is it that's dragging you off

my spirit is leaving with you on the river

I'll have to console my shadow on this side of Heaven

what can I do on that stream to the west

what can I do alone but go fishing

_________________

Liu Tsung-Yuan
translated by Red Pine
Written in Exile
Copper Canyon Books

POLISH IMMIGRANTS ~

Polish Immigrants



how do they break away from the land

where even stones take root



how do two languages share one mouth

like two women in one kitchen



how do they bring their bloody bodies

wrapped in accordions instead of bandage

through Security



do new hotels remind them

of boxes of german chocolate



is it true that their pillows

are stuffed with soil

softer than any feather



their faces differ from the locals'

by the number of wrinkles

as if they started

sculpturing something new out of their skin

but then stopped having changed their minds

and never finished their reincarnation



the tiny wrinkles in the corners of their eyes

twisted and shiny from sweat

like bonbon wrappers

but when you look into those eyes

you are looking down the barrel of a gun —

what do you need

in the territory of their city

painted on the wall of the restaurant

Taste of Europe



and there

that very taste

fills your eyes with saliva



————————————

Valzhyna Mort
Factory of Tears
Copper Canyon Press
2008

URSULA K. LE GUIN ~ (So Far So Good)

Theodora

I think how fine my mother was.

Her doings and her things were lovable.

Her turquoise bracelets, her violet

dinner dress with a jeweled waist.

The way when she was undressing

she'd go around with her nylons unhitched.

I think of all this now with tenderness

and comfort in the recollection.

Oh I was so angry at her when she died

for dying, but at last that's gone

and she comes to me again with silver

and turquoise on her wrists

in the sunlight.

————————————

So Far So Good

Ursula K. Le Guin

Final Poems 2014-2018

Copper Canyon Press

ROBERT HEDIN ~

  

Pollen



For weeks it was our weather,

Clouding the air for days,

A fine bright storm that billowed

Over barns and feedlots,

Making all the livestock shine,

The horses one color.

And like luck I wanted it to last,

To have it there each morning

When I milked, the stalls

And stanchions shining,

The udders all dust with light.






Afterward




Afterward everything hung in perfect balance. Light and

dark, heaven and hell. We weighed our words carefully and

never went outside. We just wandered the house, one desolate

room after another, afraid anything we'd say, even the

slightest comment, would bring the day crashing to the

floor. And so finally we settled on no words at all, and lost

ourselves in little things — watering the plants, straightening

the books on the bookshelves — both of us wondering how

long it could last. It was like some great scale, so fragile, so

delicately calibrated, even the dust was a factor, could tip

the day one way or another.






Whiteout




Here on this ridge

The only color

Left is you,

And soon you too will fade.

The spruce have long

Returned to birch,

and the birch

Are quietly

Turning to snow.





—————————————
Robert Hedin
At the Great Door of Morning  
Copper Canyon, 2017

ROLF JACOBSEN ~

When They Sleep


All people are children when they sleep.

There's no war in them then.

They open their hands and breathe

in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.



They pucker their lips like small children

and open their hands halfway,

soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.

The stars stand guard

and a haze veils he sky,

a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.



If only we could speak to one another then

when our hearts are half-open flowers.

Words like golden bees

would drift in.

God, teach me the language of sleep.


————————

Rolf Jacobsen
from At the Great Door of Morning / Robert Hedin
translated by Robert Hedin
Copper Canyon, 2017

OLAV H. HAUGE ~

It's the Dream


It's the dream we carry

that something wondrous will happen,

that it must happen —

that time will open

that doors will open

that the mountain will open

that springs will gush forth —

that the dream itself will open,

that one fine morning we'll drift

into a harbor we didn't know was there.





Poem


If you can make a poem

a farmer finds useful,

you should be happy.

A blacksmith you can never figure out.

The worst to please is a carpenter.






I Have Three Poems


I have three poems,

he said.

who counts poems?

Emily tossed hers

in a trunk,I

doubt if she counted them,

she simply opened another tea bag

and wrote a new one.

That was right. A good poem

should smell of tea.

Or of raw earth and freshly cut wood.





——————————————

Olav H. Hauge
from At the Great Door of Morning / Robert Hedin
translated by Robert Hedin
Copper Canyon, 2017

TED KOOSER ~

March 20

                            The Vernal Equinox

How important it must be

to someone

that I am alive, and walking,

and that I have written

these poems.

This morning the sun stood

right at the end of the road

and waited for me.

Copper Canyon Press

2018

GHASSAN ZAQTAN ~

Also the House


Near the camp was a river
and in our house were absentees and hands
that will one day wake us in vain

I had just turned seven
while he was sitting in the shade
ironing his clothes
the blue jacket sagging over his shoulders

I paid no attention to the road
or the three steps
and didn't notice the carpet

I don't remember who was it that said
to me or to another
"When you grow up poetry will become your house"

The dust that eats the memories
always distances those folks

yet their chairs appear from afar,
from behind the hills and over the houses,
to hang in an air of summer and holm oak,
those shaded chairs that reach the  heart
on shoulders topped
with five flowers

Which flowers are speech
which flowers are silence?

And I can't remember
whether it was my uncle who stood at the door,
whether we had palm and lotus trees
in our house in Karameh,
whether my mother
who gave birth to me on the shelf
was folding our clothes behind our father's back
so he could sleep

The watchdogs used to cry from the heat,
and poetry, Husseini of Jerusalem,
and Khidr the mystic were all in our house
as was my uncle who came from a pond
within Hebron's walls

Twenty years would pass before a photo could tell us
we have grown older
and that's that

My father used to discompose his friends
with his days, and women
with the thread of seduction in his voice
as he would sprinkle chatter in their rivers
while walking about here or there with a lilt,
he'd let his days fall off him
and let others gather them as he walked
on gold that came only for him

And I can't remember
in our courtyard there were holm oaks,
a fountain, a tiled floor by a huge door,
we were confused and in a hurry

The closet that faced us in the second room
had a mirror
the mirror we now seek

And my father was standing alone in the hall that led
the stairs to the roof
thanking his days
or preparing for Wednesday's nap
or Thursday's morning
as he left, among the things he'd leave, the water can
full of water
while around his chairs our Saturdays rose

My father didn't want too much from life:
a house, five boys
who don't mess with his papers,
which were already chaos,
and two girls
so that braids could float all around the house


————————
Ghassan Zaqtan
The Silence That Remains
selected poems
translated by Fady Joudah
Copper Canyon, 2017

ELLEN BASS ~

Prayer


Once I wore a dress liquid as vodka.

My lover watched me ascend

from the subway

like I was an underground spring

breaking through.

I want to stop wanting to be wanted like that.

I'm tired of the song the rain sings in June,

the earth, her ornate crown of trees

spiking up from her loamy head.

There are things I wanted, like everyone.

But to this angel of wishes I've worshiped

so long, I ask now to admit

the world as it is.


————————
ELLEN BASS
Like a Beggar
Copper Canyon Press, 2014





Oddly, Copper Canyon Press claims Like A Beggar is the poet's third book of poetry,
neglecting to note her first book of poetry — one that I fell for at the time — 
I'm Not Your Laughing Daughter (Univ. Mass. Press, 1973). Find that neglected book.