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Taha Muhammad Ali (1931–2011) was born in the Galilee village of Saffuriyya, destroyed during the 1948 war. The owner of a souvenir shop in Nazareth, he was also the author of five books of poetry in Arabic and of So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971–2005. His biography, by Adina Hoffman, is entitled My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century.

Photograph by Nina Subin.

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Twigs

by Taha Muhammad Ali
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Neither music,
fame, nor wealth,
not even poetry itself,
could provide consolation
for life’s brevity,
or the fact that King Lear
is a mere eighty pages long and comes to an end,
and for the thought that one might suffer greatly
on account of a rebellious child.

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  • Love is an everlasting theme, Taha Muhammad Ali. When all is...
  • Beauty expressed in reality that takes you beyond this existence and...
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