Poetry Composition Through Instruction
by Shihab Zeest Hashmi A guard forces you to urinate on yourselfAnother barks out louder than his dogthe names of your sisterswho live in the delicate nestof a ruby-throated hummingbirdEach will be a skeleton he saysWas there someone who gave youseven almonds for memory,a teaspoon of honey every morning?Cardamom tea before bed?Someone who starched your…
Read more
by Mamoud Darwish I didn’t apologize to the well as I passed by it.I borrowed a cloud from an ancient pine and squeezed itlike an orange. I waited for a mythical white deer.I instructed my heart in patience: Be neutral, as thoughyou were not a part of me. Here, good shepherdsstood on air and invented…
Read more
By Naomi Shihab Nye Because the eye has a short shadow orit is hard to see over heads in the crowd? If everyone else seems smarterbut you need your own secret? If mystery was never your friend? If one way could satisfy the infinite heart of the heavens? If you liked the king on his…
Read more
by Naomi Shihab Nye Tiny keyboard bearing the massive reverie of the past—press one button, we’re carried away on a country road,marching with saints, leaving the Red River Valley…here is every holiday you hated, every hard time,each steamy summer wish. You closed your eyesin the wooden stairwell, leaning your head against the wall,knowing a bigger…
Read more
by Naomi Shihab Nye Before you know what kindness really isyou must lose things,feel the future dissolve in a momentlike salt in a weakened broth.What you held in your hand,what you counted and carefully saved,all this must go so you knowhow desolate the landscape can bebetween the regions of kindness.How you ride and ridethinking the…
Read more
by Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952: for Sitti Khadra, north of Jerusalem My grandmother’s hands recognize grapes,|the damp shine of a goat’s new skin.When I was sick they followed me,I woke from the long fever to find themcovering my head like cool prayers. My grandmother’s days are made of bread,a round pat-pat and the slow baking.She waits…
Read more
By Imtiaz Dharker When I can’t comprehendwhy they’re burning booksor slashing paintings,when they can’t bear to lookat god’s own nakedness,when they ban the filmand gut the seats to stop the playand I ask whythey just smile and say,‘She must be from another country.’ When I speak on the phoneand the vowel sounds are offwhen the consonants…
Read more
by Imtiaz Dharker The place is full of worshippers.You can tell by the sandalspiled outside, the owners’ printsworn into leather, rubber, plastic,a picture clearer than their facesput together, with some originality,brows and eyes, the slantof cheek to chin.What prayer are they whispering?Each one has left a mark,the perfect pattern of a need,sole and heel and…
Read more
(is a zajal by the Sufi poet Al-Shushtari (1212-1269). was an Andalusian Sufi poet. His poetry was designed to be sung, in songs employing simple monorhymes to praise God with everyday musical idiom, which won wide recognition beyond the hundreds of disciples in his own Shushtariyya brotherhood. zajal –Zajal is semi-improvised and semi-sung and is often performed in the format of…
Read more
by Rumi This is the day and the yearof the rose. The whole garden is opening with laughter. Iriswhispering to cypress. The rose is the joy of meeting someone.The rose is a world imagination cannot imagine. A messenger fromthe orchard where the soul lives. A small seed that points to a greatrose tree! Hold its…
Read more
Recent Comments