Poem of the Week

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.

Twigs

by Taha Muhammad Ali

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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