We are they whose loud carousing,
Tankards deep and anthems rousing
Fill the inns, the drink espousing:
Gentlemen of Bacchus.
As on drunken nights aplenty
Since before the age of twenty;
Alcoholic cognoscenti:
Gentlemen of Bacchus.
Once our numbers swamped the tables,
Packed the snug up to the gables,
Filled the air with jokes and fables:
Gentlemen of Bacchus.
Dusk comes gently here; the shadows creep
Like furtive lovers,all things to enfold
In arms of darkness. Luna watches bold
The leisurely seduction, so to keep
The rendezvous of twilight’s consummation.
Adina Hoffman lives in Jerusalem. She is the author of House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood. She has contributed to The Nation, The Washington Post, The Times Literary Supplement and so on. She is one of the founders of Ibis Editions. Recently, Adina spoke about her latest book, My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century, which tells the story of Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali, with Jonathan Mok.
Jonathan Mok: Can you tell our readers when and why you first became interested in Taha Muhammad Ali and his work?
Adina Hoffman: Taha Muhammad Ali is a remarkable poet and a remarkable man—someone who is at one and the same time absolutely extraordinary and utterly ordinary, and it was that combination that drew me to him. When I say that Taha is extraordinary, I mean that he has lived through some of the most devastating historical and personal events it’s possible to imagine—he lost his village, his homeland, and many of the people closest to him, and his culture is in serious danger of erasure—and yet he has emerged from that crucible with a love for life that is, in my experience unrivalled. He is neither bitter nor angry, but curious, ebullient, even joyous. More extraordinary still, he has managed to transform those devastating experiences into art of the very first order.
At the same time, Taha is deeply ordinary: many of the ordeals he has suffered are the same ordeals that most Palestinians have had to endure. In this sense, his story is in no way his alone, but stands as a more emblematic tale. And to extend that still further, this story—of exile, loss, and displacement—isn’t just a Palestinian story. Many other people (and peoples) have experienced similar tragedies.
I first met Taha in 1995. A few years later, my husband, the poet Peter Cole, began to translate his work into English; in 2000, Ibis Editions, the small press we run in Jerusalem, published a volume of Taha’s work in English, and since then Taha and Peter have been invited to read together all over the US and Europe. I’ve gone along for the ride, and as we’ve traveled together, all three of us have become very close. My decision to write about Taha was a natural extension of that bond.
Jonathan: What are some of the similarities, as well as differences, between Muhammad Ali and poets such as Mahmoud Darwish?
Author’s note: The Saxon referred to in the fourth stanza is the anonymous author of the Anglo-Saxon elegy known to us as The Seafarer. It almost certainly wasn’t written anywhere near Exmouth (my home town, where this poem is set; specifically speaking, it refers to the Exe estuary), but parts of it may have been inspired by somewhere similar.
The sun’s young face is veiled in mourning weeds;
The steel scar dulls to grey, bereaved of light.
And by the ever-rolling stream away,
Remorseless engineering speeds from sight.
The mind turns north, but ever to the west
The sands lie out and beckon to the eye
While harsh, the touting voices of the gulls
Extol the River with each vaunting cry.
Ode to Enemies
I love my enemies,
with Neruda’s affection.
I cherish insults,
epithets
sarcasm;
I pray,
to be mocked
– abused –
its my redemption. Read More
I feel like a little girl standing in the sun,
beams shining full on her face, grin cocked
towards heaven.
For the first time in my adult life, I understand
what spring feels like for budding flowers, and
I understand the purpose of my mouth and limbs.
I feel the earth beneath my feet tremble, and I still
want to walk on it. I still want to take step after step
towards a new beginning, a promised hope.
In my heart, a new chapter emerges where that lie
about how we can be anything (even the President)
is suddenly and irreversibly true. We can be.
In my mind, the challenges we face are daunting,
and they traipse upon our ideals of achievement
in a world of depression and doubt. Fear slithers on.
But since my dream has come alight, since the sun
feels warm on my face, the earth firm under my feet,
I can do no more than work and dream.
Science say
Our leisure activities
Could definitely,
Maybe, perhaps the
Research shows certain
Risk factors that cannot be
So alarming when in the
Throes of cocktails
Served in smoky glasses
In smoky bars
That allow said smoke
To escape
Through back alleyways and
Into the streets and
Rape our everyday, Read More
tears spill with my seed
sewn in sand not soil
Children fall and die, though,
I can’t hear their cries
of woe nor blasts from canons
Other than the one I grip,
squeeze to diplomatically relieve
tension, inner struggle, pestilence,
armed conflict, hand-to-hand
combat, anger, discord, strife Read More
Fear is a Rapist with papers–
Convicted sex offender–
So, keep your distance.
Listen, I know–
I have a witness
From the stars
And evidence–
Exhibit A:
My rectal scars. Read More
A Mermaid named Nala
Met with Jessie the Rabbit
To discuss what the Old Adage say.
While sharing a laugh
For each less than better half
(Fixed Fools who were long drawn away),
They pushed through the portal
Of the detailed dwelling
Of Wally the Wolf at bay.
He showed them his knife,
They giggled more than twice,
As he outlined why they should stay: Read More
