Taha Muhammad Ali is one of the leading poets on the contemporary Palestinian literary scene. He writes in a forceful, direct style, with disarming humor and unflinching, at times, painful, honesty -- the poetry's apparent simplicity and homespun truths concealing the subtle grafting of classical Arabic and colloquial forms of expression. NEVER MIND is the poet's first collection in English. Translated by Peter Cole and Gabriel Levin.
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Ali keeps a souvenir shop in Nazareth, where he has lived since returning from Lebanon a year after the Israeli army, in 1948, razed his once-nearby hometown, Suffuriya. Self-taught in modern literature, he exemplifies the marriage of folk-cultural rootedness and cosmopolitanism also found in the American poet Wendell Berry and Orkney's George Mackay Brown. His free-verse poems, often set in Suffuriya as he recalls it, subtly disclose the implications of personal stories and situations. In "Empty Words," for instance, he castigates his notebook for containing no words magical enough to turn him into "a rock on a hill . . . /unable to see or hear, / be sad or suffer." That image elicits a futile revolutionary outburst and then his living sorrow over losing "her / to whom I bade / farewell at the harbor pier / in Haifa forty years ago," during a crisis that still haunts world consciousness. Besides poems, the little book contains a splendid introduction to Ali the man and storyteller, and a sensuous prose story of childhood disappointment. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"In Muhammad Ali's world, what appears to be placid can suddenly become disconcerting.... He is a beguiling story-teller who maintains a tone of credibility and lucidity without diluting the mysterious or distressing aspects of his tale.... By avoiding commonplace response to everyday experience [Muhammad Ali] has written poems that are fragile and graceful and fresh." --John Palatella, The Nation
"A deeply humane collection .... Muhammad Ali speaks with an emotional forthrightness and unflinching honesty … He has developed a style that seems both ancient and new, deceptively simple and movingly direct." --Edward Hirsch, The Washington Post
His patient, insistent and often beautiful iterations of who is who and what is what are as compelling and evocative as the faces and places that any reader has himself or herself loved ... It is immediately evident that the poet's vision of experience is equally applicable to Arabs and Jews, kings and paupers, the quarter of the world's population that is Chinese, and the other three-quarters as well. Never Mind is a must." --Ha aretz
"A deeply humane collection .... Muhammad Ali speaks with an emotional forthrightness and unflinching honesty … He has developed a style that seems both ancient and new, deceptively simple and movingly direct." --Edward Hirsch, The Washington Post
His patient, insistent and often beautiful iterations of who is who and what is what are as compelling and evocative as the faces and places that any reader has himself or herself loved ... It is immediately evident that the poet's vision of experience is equally applicable to Arabs and Jews, kings and paupers, the quarter of the world's population that is Chinese, and the other three-quarters as well. Never Mind is a must." --Ha aretz
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poems of Classic Beauty,
By
This review is from: Never Mind: Twenty Poems And A Story (Paperback)
Gorgeous poems about life in small villages in Palestine, the This book travels over everyday life, eating and farming, how the particular beauties of nature are savored. There are beautiful pictures of a grandfather and a mother. The wonderful story about the author's shoelessness is very touching. This book takes you to the heart of a world that, as an American reader, I knew wxisted but could not find my way to. I am so grateful for Taha for bringing me here.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Affecting Poetry, the Grievous and the Buoyant,
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This review is from: Never Mind: Twenty Poems And A Story (Paperback)
Taha's limpid and lyrical poems do what wondrous poetry always does. They deliver sensual plesure with their music and special sensibility--they tell us what it means to be alive, in particular ways, "touch the herbs/the wild artichoke and chicory," and to grieve over our losses, again in particular ways: "fatigue, hunger, vagrancy/debt..." These poems embrace the land of Taha's origins, yet never veer into ideology or hatred. They glow with a love of what we are and what we must suffer. Bravo.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Permission to Write Literature,
By Fulano Mingano "F. M." (Nablus, TX) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Never Mind: Twenty Poems And A Story (Paperback)
English readers may not yet know how lucky they are to be able to read Taha Muhammad Ali's poetry and prose. But once they get their hands on this, they will -- and it will change their minds about the range of themes and styles alive in modern Palestinian literature. Taha Muhammad Ali is one of Palestine's most unique voices. He's been writing, (or telling stories and singing poems) for forty years now, and this collection shows the range of his talent. His sources, famously, are not exactly those of Palestine's literary establishment. Though now located in Nazareth, Israel's largest Palestinian city, he draws his themes from his childhood in his village, Saffuriyya. This means his writing is both as local as the oral epic poetry and zajals he heard as a child, and as cosmopolitan as the world literature he has devoured for decades -- a list that would include Dickens, Mahfouz, and Steinbeck at the top. The mix of local and global, high and low, classic and experimental is as curious as it is engaging. Most importantly, this mix means that Muhammad Ali cannot be pigeonholed as a writer. For all these reasons, Ibis has done us a great favor by introducing us to Muhammad Ali. The translators of this collection -- Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi and Gabriel Levin -- are to be congratulated for the delicacy of their work -- they are a delight to read.
There is, of course, a long history of self-appointed censors who are on the lookout to refute anything a Palestinian might ever say, even when they say it in fiction. They feel it their duty to deny Palestinian self-expression in any form. For students of US history, these attempts to exclude brown-skinned authors from the temple of literature will be sadly familiar. It is not surprising that extremist voices have objected to this book, as they object to all others that don't pass their test of political orthodoxy. What would Muhammad Ali say in reply? Probably just: "Never mind. Go on reading anyway." And then he'd laugh -- and his readers will laugh with him. In other words, Muhammad Ali's work is itself probably the best challenge to those who would seek to silence him. Pick up "Never Mind" and you'll see why. This author writes literature without a care for small-minded politics -- and readers will appreciate him for that. Finally, it just needs to be emphasized that this book is a work of literature that will expand your mind. Still, if in the midst of reading "Never Mind" you hear a clamor of politics -- a humanist politics that transcends the tribalism of his detractors -- don't be surprised, just keep turning the pages.
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