Poet of the Week from Libya: Fatima Mahmoud
This week’s poet of the week once again hails from Libya. I came across this poem in the excellent collection:
Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar.
I also wrote a paper on the recent Libyan revolution: A Coalition to What End
Excerpt from “What Was Not Conceivable”
Carnations
flee
Carnations
spill their crimson autobiographies
I said:
the ember is the master of fire
the ember
is its dust . . .
Then I become confounded . . .
what
to offer . . .
the master’s repulsive . . .
and delicious mouth
I am singed with happiness
endowed
with the stamps of hollowness
lips
dipped in counterfeit songs
a scented
morning and our faces . . .
are spat out
in handsome
editions . . .
What
To offer
The master’s repulsive
Delicious mouth.
By Fatima Mahmoud
Translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Fatima Mahmoud is a Libyan poet, writer, and journalist (there is a another Fatima Mahmoud who lives in England that shows up more frequently when you google-search her name). She worked as a journalist in Libya from 1976 to 1987, and then moved to Cyprus and started a magazine (Modern Sheharazade) focusing on Arab women’s issues, for which she served as the chief editor. In 1995, Mahmoud sought political asylum in Germany. Good luck find anything on her life since then. I couldn’t find anything online, except that maybe she is the woman referenced in this article as a member of the rebel Libyan Interim Transitional National Council:
FUUO Past Poets of the Week:
Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar.
FUUO Past Poets of the Week:
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