ArtHopHome2017

INSPIRED BY POEMS OF MAHMOUD DARWISH

TWO-PANELED YELLOW PAINTING OF A TRACTOR USED TO DESTROY HOUSES
 
I have learned and dismantled
all the words in order to draw from them
A single word: home.
from “I belong there” from Fewer Roses

TWO-PANELED BLACK AND GRAY PAINTING OF A TANK
 
We are captives
even if our wheat grows over the fences
and swallows rise from our broken chains
We are captives of what we love, what we desire, and what we are
from “The Hoopoe” in Unfortunately, it was Paradise from I see what I want to see
Unfortunately, it was Paradise.
(no poem of this title found. It’s been referred to by scholars as the title of the first collection which brought Darwish to English-speakers’ attention. It may have no Arabic source as a phrase.)
 

ONE-PANELED BLACK AND GRAY PAINTING OF AN ARMED IDF SOLDIER
 
Where can I free myself of the homeland in my body?
from “The Last Train Has Stopped”

TWO-PANELED GREEN PAINTING OF A TRACTOR USED TO DESTROY
HOUSES
"The Horse Fell Off the Poem" BY MAHMOUD DARWISH – TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

The horse fell off the poem
and the Galilean women were wet
with butterflies and dew,
dancing above chrysanthemum
 
The two absent ones: you and I
you and I are the two absent ones
 
A pair of white doves
chatting on the branches of a holm oak
 
No love, but I love ancient
love poems that guard
the sick moon from smoke
 
I attack and retreat, like the violin in quatrains
I get far from my time when I am near
the topography of place …
 
There is no margin in modern language left
to celebrate what we love,
because all that will be … was
 
The horse fell bloodied
with my poem
and I fell bloodied
with the horse’s blood ...
 

 
All panels are 55 inches x 7 feet, thin cloth, thin housepaint

Sponsored by Vermonters for Justice in Palestine.