Where Not to Be Born

Presented in English alongside the original Arabic, this expansive selection of poems by Fathy (Al Haschische) draws from four collections published between 1989 and 2010. While translator Wehbe notes that “Fathy’s poems produce language that grows lush and dense, like vines that entwine themselves around the trellis of meaning, complicating literal approaches to translation,” these versions are dynamic and musical on the page: “The blade has gone to/ times of painful sighs forbid eavesdropping/ polluted skies conceal/ suns of warmth from oppression/ deep within grief are endless sources” (“First and Last”). Wehbe writes of Fathy “defending the vanguard of the Arabic prose poem,” noting that she “strikes and claws at the heart of language.” This is evident in a later poem, “Negativities,” which opens with a prose section: “Obscure are the poems written across continents. Like dawn, they transmit stories to those mirrors implanted on the shorelines where bullets bear the silence of heavy breathing. I robbed the snakes of their nests, I mused over the bitterness of the alphabet, mills, and graves.” This vibrant volume introduces English readers to an experimental and cinematic writer. (Feb.)