Awake by Najwan Darwish
Awake
Najwan Darwish
Translated by Kareem James Abu-ZeidAwake for longer than forever
and since before eternity
my waking is the wave that froths and foamsAwake in hymns and the mailmen’s passion
Awake in a house that will be destroyed
in a grave that machines will dig up:
My country is the wave that froths and foamsAwake so that the colonizers might leave
Awake so that people can sleep
“Everyone has to sleep sometime,” they say
I am awake
and ready to die
MARGINALIA
1.
Day 09 of The Sealey Challenge. Today’s offering is Nothing More to Lose by Najwan Darwish, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid.
2.
What they don’t tell us about love—and what I had to learn on my own, devastatingly, is that to love means to also deal with loss and grief. To love means to be aware of your place in the world and, at the same time, understand that there is something deeply unfair and unjust happening in that same world. What does it mean to have this one life in a country where everything is almost in ruins?
3.
Reading Nothing More to Lose by Najwan Darwish feels like being drawn into the heart of a conflict, a world shaped by the constant presence of anguish and cruelty. Darwish’s poems, translated with astonishing grace by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, capture moments of history and personal reflection, weaving language that does not shy away from the realities of Palestine, marked by struggle and sorrow, but also by an unyielding spirit.
4.
Darwish explores the vast emotional terrain that comes with living through and beyond conflict. This book explores identity and the weight of history on the self that yearns to be—and embraces the truth that love and despair do coexist, often within the same breath.
5.
Oh, what capacity the poet holds—and the translator, too—to be able to articulate the distance between those who suffer and those who observe. Can we ever really separate ourselves from other people’s pain? What can we do with all this heartbreak? And what of the unyielding love that still arrives, after all this time, after all this pain?
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Nothing More to Lose by Najwan Darwish, published by New York Review of Books, 2014. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“Nothing More to Lose is the first collection of poems by Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish to appear in English. Hailed across the Arab world and beyond, Darwish’s poetry walks the razor’s edge between despair and resistance, between dark humor and harsh political realities. With incisive imagery and passionate lyricism, Darwish confronts themes of equality and justice while offering a radical, more inclusive, rewriting of what it means to be both Arab and Palestinian living in Jerusalem, his birthplace.” (Source)
ABOUT NAJWAN DARWISH
Najwan Darwish is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Exhausted on the Cross, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid (NYRB Poets, 2021). The recipient of several awards, including the Sarah Maguire Prize in Translation and the Cilento International Poetry Prize, Darwish lives between Haifa and his birthplace, Jerusalem. (Source)
Read more poems by Najwan Darwish • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Follow on Instagram • Website • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- This is Day 9 of The Sealey Challenge 2024—a community challenge to read one book of poetry a day for the month of August, named after Nicole Sealey.
- Read more translations by Kareem James Abu-Zeid • Discover more poems in English • Or view more translated poems
- Explore other works in pursuit of: despair • war • death • Or browse the index
- If this work resonates with you, please consider supporting the archive. Thank you for reading.
