New Poetry by Atef Alshaer – ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY

We have one poem by Atef Alshaer in the Spring 2024 issue of ArabLit Quarterly, in partnership with Majalla 28, which accompanies his conversation with journalist Ursula Lindsey about Gaza’s literary histories, “A Form of Refuge.” This conversation was a collaboration with The Point magazine, where it also appears.

Here, as an online companion, we share a second poem by Atef Alshaer, translated by the author.

They Prepare for their Weddings

By Atef Alshaer

Translated by the author

 

Those who die now

from my country

with the sun on their faces

and a horizon betraying them.

Those who die

with the bullets of Israel

and die with the promises of Israel

they die at the gathering of roads

and from the weightless burden of the sky

they die

in houses bereft of light

in hospitals emptied of cures

they die.

Death visits them more than poetry,

hunger eats their children,

and they prepare for their weddings

under collapsed roofs

over dead bodies under the rubble.

They die without mirrors

and walk in roads unashamed of their narrowness

those who die now

from the youth of my country

they are

without a doubt

concealing in their bodies

the barest sparks of a fire.

يُجهّزون لأعراسهم

من يموتون الآن
في بلادي
مع شمسٍ تداعبُ وجوههم
وأفاقُ تخذلهم
من يموتون
برصاص “إسرائيل”

“ويموتون بوعود “إسرائيل

يموتون في زحمة الطرقات

ومن ثقلٍ سماءٍ بلا وزن

يموتون

في بيوتٍ بلا ضوء
وفي مستشفيات بلا شفاء

يموتون

يزورهم الموت أكثر من الشعر

ويأكلُ الجوعُ أطفالهم
يموتون
وهُم يجهّزون لأعراسهم
تحت أسّقفُ مُهدمة

وفوقَ أمواتٍ تحت الأنقاض
يموتون دون مرايا
ويسلكون طرقاً لا تخجل من ضِيقها
من يموتون الآن
من شباب بلادي
بلا شكّ
يُخبّئون في أجسادهم

.شرارات النار الأسطع

Atef Alshaer is a senior lecturer in Arabic Studies at the University of Westminster. He is also a poet and translator who grew up in the Gaza Strip. His published books include Love and Poetry in the Middle East: Love and Literature from Antiquity to the Present, Language and National Identity in Palestine: Representations of Power and Resistance in Gaza, Poetry and Politics in the Modern Arab World, and A Map of Absence: An Anthology of Palestinian Writing on the Nakba.