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towardinfinitybooks's review
3.0
Read Harder 2017 task: Read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love.
I had quite a few translated poetry collections in mind when pursuing this task. However, I have relied on my local library system and interlibrary loans to complete most of the Read Harder challenge, and I decided to do the same here. None of the collections I was most interested in were accessible to me, so I searched the library for books that would fit the task and this one came up.
I love the structure of this collection. Most poems are paired - with one poem describing a concept before the American occupation of Iraq and a second describing it after the occupation. Topics include love, death, loneliness, soccer, honor, photographs, and Eid.
In this book, the original Arabic text is printed on on one side with the English translations on the opposite-facing page. I speak very little Arabic and cannot read modern Arabic at all, so I had to stick to the English versions. The translated poems are written in straightforward language, mostly easy to understand. I felt some strong emotions resonating throughout the collection- anger, frustration, a profound sense of loss. Those are moments where I think the translation does well.
However, I have mixed feelings. Howell is an American writer and poet who decided to translate the collection when she came across a poem that al-Jubouri had written called "The Veil of the Religions." Howell is not fluent in Arabic so she worked with Husam Qaisi, a Palestinian-American family friend of hers. Neither Howell nor Qaisi appear to have any background in translation. The methodology that they used is described in the preface of the book, and seems a bit unconventional though Al-Jubouri reviewed and accepted their work. Howell further discussed how and why she undertook the project in an interview with ArabLit.org in 2012. I do not wish to cast aspersions on either Howell or Qaisi but some of the things discussed both in the interview and the preface of the book gave me pause (e.g. using Judeo-Christian religious imagery in place of Islamic imagery, rendering ancient poetry as contemporary a la Coleman Barks, etc). I would be interested to see how a fluent speaker/reader of both Arabic and English responds to the original text and the translations.
I had quite a few translated poetry collections in mind when pursuing this task. However, I have relied on my local library system and interlibrary loans to complete most of the Read Harder challenge, and I decided to do the same here. None of the collections I was most interested in were accessible to me, so I searched the library for books that would fit the task and this one came up.
I love the structure of this collection. Most poems are paired - with one poem describing a concept before the American occupation of Iraq and a second describing it after the occupation. Topics include love, death, loneliness, soccer, honor, photographs, and Eid.
In this book, the original Arabic text is printed on on one side with the English translations on the opposite-facing page. I speak very little Arabic and cannot read modern Arabic at all, so I had to stick to the English versions. The translated poems are written in straightforward language, mostly easy to understand. I felt some strong emotions resonating throughout the collection- anger, frustration, a profound sense of loss. Those are moments where I think the translation does well.
However, I have mixed feelings. Howell is an American writer and poet who decided to translate the collection when she came across a poem that al-Jubouri had written called "The Veil of the Religions." Howell is not fluent in Arabic so she worked with Husam Qaisi, a Palestinian-American family friend of hers. Neither Howell nor Qaisi appear to have any background in translation. The methodology that they used is described in the preface of the book, and seems a bit unconventional though Al-Jubouri reviewed and accepted their work. Howell further discussed how and why she undertook the project in an interview with ArabLit.org in 2012. I do not wish to cast aspersions on either Howell or Qaisi but some of the things discussed both in the interview and the preface of the book gave me pause (e.g. using Judeo-Christian religious imagery in place of Islamic imagery, rendering ancient poetry as contemporary a la Coleman Barks, etc). I would be interested to see how a fluent speaker/reader of both Arabic and English responds to the original text and the translations.
kimberwolf's review
5.0
Iraqi poet Amal al-Jubouri has written paired poems in stark language, describing the before and after of the occupation of her country by Coalition troops in the early 2000s. al-Jubouri's words about her war-torn country reflect her feelings of pain, loneliness, and despair. The paired poems are mostly brief but insightful. The last part of the book is described as the Cantos chapter, where longer poems are included, some paired and some not.
A detailed notes section at the end of the book gives background information for the poems that contain references some readers may not understand or know. For example, the poem “Soccer Before the Occupation” continues thus: 'was torture / we were scared to cheer / but terrified we might lose... Only the President's sons were cheering / brother sponsors of our game, our rage.' And the notes for this poem explain that during Ba'ath Party rule, Uday Hussein, the dictator's son, directed the national team and was notorious for threatening the players with torture if they lost.
This collection conveys to the reader a visceral feeling of what it must be like to move from the familiar, terrible fear of a murderous dictator to an equally terrible fear of constant, unpredictable violence between factions – at no time, before or after the fall of Saddam Hussein, feeling in control of your own destiny or free.
A detailed notes section at the end of the book gives background information for the poems that contain references some readers may not understand or know. For example, the poem “Soccer Before the Occupation” continues thus: 'was torture / we were scared to cheer / but terrified we might lose... Only the President's sons were cheering / brother sponsors of our game, our rage.' And the notes for this poem explain that during Ba'ath Party rule, Uday Hussein, the dictator's son, directed the national team and was notorious for threatening the players with torture if they lost.
This collection conveys to the reader a visceral feeling of what it must be like to move from the familiar, terrible fear of a murderous dictator to an equally terrible fear of constant, unpredictable violence between factions – at no time, before or after the fall of Saddam Hussein, feeling in control of your own destiny or free.
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