Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? (Arabic Edition) [Paperback]

Mahmoud Darwish (Author), Jeffrey Sacks (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2006

At once an intimate autobiography and a collective memory of the Palestinian people, Mahmoud Darwish’s interlinked poems are collective cries, songs, and glimpses of the human condition. The collection—widely considered his chef-d’oeuvre—is a poetry of myth and history, of exile and suspended time, of an identity bound to the Arabic language and his displaced people. Darwish’s poems—specific and symbolic, simple and profound—are historical glimpses, existential queries, chants of pain and injustice of a people separated from their land.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Poet, journalist, and advocate for the Palestinian people, Darwish was born in 1941 in Birwa (near Akko). He has written over four volumes of poetry and several books of essays, including "Memory for Forgetfulness" (U of Cal Press 1995). Jeffrey Sacks received a doctorate from NYU in Arabic literature, and has translated essays of Darwish. His translations and scolarly work has appeared in a variety of literary journals.

Product Details

• Paperback: 197 pages
• Publisher: Archipelago Books; Bilingual edition (February 1, 2006)
• Language: Arabic
• ISBN-10: 0976395010
• ISBN-13: 978-0976395010
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #676,179 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry as if one were timeless and in a trance, August 6, 2008

By 

Tebes "Buchlieber" (Niagara Region, ON) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? (Arabic Edition) (Paperback)

Years ago, a friend from Palestine recommended the works of Mahmoud Darwish. The local university didn't have any of his books on hand and at the time, there were other concerns in my life, things going on that made searching out good poetry difficult - school, work, other studies.
(It was the same friend who introduced me to Sufism and for that I am eternally grateful...)

Recently I picked up this book, remembering my friend's recommendation.

From the first page onward, from the first poem, I was drawn away into another world. I found these poems to have a stillness about them, a mournful but organic quiet. I can't really explain the impact... it was like this seed of beauty, long dormant, something unexpected, began to take shape with the discovery of this book. It was like discovering a new way of thought and looking at the wonder of the world. Reading this book I felt at times without time, stirred up into a trance. I guess it left me a little drunk.

My personal favourite poems of this collection:
"Poetic Arrangements"
"The Phases of Anat"
"From One Sky to Another, Dreamers Pass"
"Helen, What a Rain"
"Night Overflowing the Body"

I think my favourite line would have been:
"...We rise and dance until the/setting sun bleeds upon your feet..."

I'm sure if you love poetry, especially the poetry outside of the well-established Canons of England and the United States (still can't stand Merwin and Lowell...reading those two is like getting your heart sandblasted with boredom... I tell ya...) then you'll love Darwish.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?, May 20, 2008

By 

Edita - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? (Arabic Edition) (Paperback)

Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?

"I don't know the desert
But I planted words at its edges"
So Mahmoud Darwish plants hope for his country and love in order to see the blossoming possibility of return, of meeting.He plants words in his poems to hide the emptiness of the present and the absence of home snatched by the gust of the wind.He has nothing to offer or expect,that's why the poet himself becomes his dream:
"I am my dream. Whenever the earth narrows, I expand it
with the wing of a swallow. I expand. I am my dream..."
Poetry is the only thing left that you can trust and lean on, it shelters you from yesterday's tragedy and tomorrow's insecurity, it unites two strangers, two chased lovers on the road which leads nowhere, two shadows of what they were, it opens the door to what "lies between a between".The reader discovers the poem, falls in love with Darwish's language, his country and ability to love, to become a dream, we as well as the poet inherit the land of the words and possess their precious meaning.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry at its best, October 18, 2008

By 

N. Simaan "coffee drinker" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? (Arabic Edition) (Paperback)

This collection of poems by Mahmood Darwish brings some of the most complex imagery wrapped in simple words. The poems are as complex and as fragile as the political situation behind the poet's exile from his own country. As a Palestinian, I was very satisfied to see that the translator managed to overcome the language barrier and to bring the English readers the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish. Mahmoud brings in this collection of poems beauty, love, and pain in impossible depiction of the Palestinian human condition of exile. The following example depicts the relationship between a father and a naive son, the pain of an uprooted father, the sarcasm of the powerless, and the beauty of landscapes in which their tragedy unfolds:

"
-Are you speaking to me my father?
-They signed a truce on the island of Rhodes,
my son!
- What about us, what about us, father?
- It's over...
-How many times will it be over, father?
-Its over. They did their duty:
They fought the enemy's airplanes with broken guns
We did our duty. We drew away from the canterberry tree
so we wouldn't tip the commander's hat
we sold our wives' rings so they could hunt birds, my son!
-Will we remain here, then, father
under the willow of the wind
between the sky and the sea? "

I loved this book, although I believe some of the best poetry of Mahomoud Darwish has not been translated yet.