Fox on a Boat

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, Moubarak Ouassat, Mahmoud Darwish Arabic Poetry in Translation Marrakesh If you are a new reader on my blog, you may not know that I love Arabic, and am currently learning the language. The above picture was taken in Morocco, when I travelled there two weeks ago with two friends. It made sense for me to continue on the Arabic theme and share some Arabic poetry today. Moubarak Ouassat The first poem I am linking to is   Perplexité . The poem is available in Arabic, with a translation in French (translated by the poet), but an English one does not seem to be available. Here is a quote from the poem: Et de quoi peut rêver  Un oiseau Que peut l’arbre Après que la pluie Ait été reportée Now, here is my (rough!) translation for you non-French speakers: And of what can dream A bird What can do the tree After the rain Has been delayed It's a pretty rough translation - the first line is not great, grammatically, but I w...

As you may know, today is/was World Poetry Day . Around these parts, it's coming to a close, but it's not quite over yet! I've been trying to post to FB and tweet  quite regularly all day, so this post will be like a round up of poetic goodness. You may also know that I am very interested in languages and translation, so I've tried to share as many translated poems as I share English ones. (You may also know that I am attempting to self teach a few languages, but I'll talk about that in more detail a little later). I tried to make today into a little project, and though I didn't do as much as I would've liked, I'm quite happy with what I did. My idea was to bring art and poetry together with loose illustrations based on the poems I'd share. I was going to paint abstract paintings but it didn't quite work out that way. Well, enough talk! I present to you now the three poems I used as artistic inspiration: #1 - "The Wandering Guitar ...

New watercolour fox for #FoxyFeb As I am writing this, I am trying not to panic about the essay I should be working on. The end of February/beginning of March is always a very busy time in students' lives. Last week was almost entirely spent on filming and editing a short film for one of my classes, and the weekend was used to catch up on coursework I didn't have time to write due to filming. So far, I've translated a cover letter into French, and written an essay debating the quote "poetry makes nothing happen" (W.H. Auden). Unfortunately, it is not over. In the past few hours, I've written a grand total of two sentences - one for my second essay, and one for my novel excerpt translation. I go to class, and nearly everyone looks completely out of it. We're all exhausted, burnt out, save a select few. (Can I really trust a student who isn't tired as the end of the semester looms over us?) I've not much writing left in me at the moment, so h...

Foxes are flavour of the month It is the month of foxes. Search Twitter for #FoxyFeb , and you will find photographs, artwork, poetry.. all about foxes. I've been participating; contributing my own art, and sharing poems I've discovered. As I have been learning Arabic since last May, I wanted to link poetry, Arabic, and foxes. As it was, it didn't take much effort on my part. I'd asked for Arabic poetry recommendations on Twitter, and was not disappointed. @TigersSterne You might want to look through the poetry here: http://t.co/kt0mxONiSe al-Saddiq al-Raddi, for instance. — M. Lynx Qualey (@arablit) February 9, 2014 One of the poems written by al-Saddiq al-Raddi was titled " Small Fox ": Suddenly - a small fox, playful, floods your wounded heart with joy He searches your face with his singular gaze, knows you're at one with his vagabond stance  ثعلبٌ صغيرٌ يمرحُ في قلبكِ الملوَّث  أَفلحَ في الهطول تلك الليلةْ وجهُكِ ...