A review by bluejayreads
If I Were Another: Poems by Mahmoud Darwish, Fady Joudah
4.0
These poems are not for me. They're lyrical and beautiful, but I don't get them. I don't feel the stirring of emotion that's supposed to accompany good poetry (and if the number of awards this book has received is any indication, this is objectively good poetry).
Some of it might be because these poems are translated from their original Arabic, and translations necessarily lose some of the nuance and emotion. Although this book has also won an award for translation, so obviously people who know these kinds of things think the translation is good. Mostly, I think I am just not the intended audience for this book.
Mahmoud Darwish is Palestinian, and the major themes of his poetry are exile, loss, and identity when your homeland has been taken from you. None of which I can relate to at all - I haven't even encountered any significant loss in my life. So I don't have the life experiences to relate to the emotions he's trying to convey in these poems.
That said, though, I did enjoy the book. The poems are poetic and lyrical, and since I'm studying Arabic it was interesting to think about translations. These poems are just not written for me, and that's okay.
Some of it might be because these poems are translated from their original Arabic, and translations necessarily lose some of the nuance and emotion. Although this book has also won an award for translation, so obviously people who know these kinds of things think the translation is good. Mostly, I think I am just not the intended audience for this book.
Mahmoud Darwish is Palestinian, and the major themes of his poetry are exile, loss, and identity when your homeland has been taken from you. None of which I can relate to at all - I haven't even encountered any significant loss in my life. So I don't have the life experiences to relate to the emotions he's trying to convey in these poems.
That said, though, I did enjoy the book. The poems are poetic and lyrical, and since I'm studying Arabic it was interesting to think about translations. These poems are just not written for me, and that's okay.