Mahmoud Darwish Has Died

He should have won the Nobel prize for literature - and might have had he lived longer - but as it is, Mahmoud Darwish inspired a generation of readers and poets in the Middle East, and beyond - becoming one of the most admired, loved, outspoken, and sometimes controversial, poets of the age.

As editor, with Val Stevenson, of 100 Poets Against The War, I worked with many global poets. We were thrilled to have his poetry as part of our project - it added so much. The great man will be missed.

Comments

Antoine Cassar said…

Great to hear Darwish's poetry in the original language on the BBC website. Thanks for the link. Poetry has lost a very big heart. For me Darwish is a symbol not only of the Palestinian struggle, but of the very possibility of peaceful coexistence, in whichever part of the world we may happen to look towards.

One of my favourite poems by Darwish is "The Dice Thrower", which has been quoted by many of the obituaries:

To Life I say:
Go slow, wait for me until the drunkenness dries in my glass

I have no role in what I was or who I will be
It is chance and chance has no name

I call the doctor 10 minutes before the death,
10 minutes are sufficient to live by chance.

Here's a homage to Darwish in the Maltese language: Mahmoud Darwish 1942-2008.

Sat Aug 16, 01:07:00 am 2008

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se. What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Search This Blog