Translator as Poet -- Selena's Question

I'm especially drawn to the part of Rebecca Gayle Howell's interview where she says that translation work has made her a better poet. She writes, "As a person who only has full access to her native language, I essentially had to deconstruct my relationship to English and my pre-conceived notions of how poetry behaves, in order to go as deep into the Arabic and into the Arabic poems as I could." Without making the two ideas mutually exclusive, I'm wondering how her earlier advice, to "work the language like bread dough," can make one a better poet. How do you do this without making the work feel belabored?

Ars Poetica -- Meghan's Question

I am fascinated by the last poem of the book, "Poetry After the Occupation" and its companion poem, "Poetry Before the Occupation." As the foreword suggests—and as this final pair demonstrates—these poems do not operate as simple binaries. Although the reference is perhaps out of place or unjustified, I can’t help thinking of the companion poems between Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. For Blake, as for al-Joubouri, the nature of the companion poem is not to provide a correction or revision, nor to construct a simple, binary understanding, but rather to frustrate the desire to think in binaries. Although one is tempted to interpret Al-Joubouri’s final pair of companion poems as an ars poetica, this simplistic approach is frustrated by the struggle with poetry that seems to occur in both poems, on both sides of the binary. For instance, in “Poetry Before the Occupation” poetry is both a temptress with “beckoning eyes” and a “cheating love;” the speaker’s “slave” but also her “god;” a source of nourishment (“you [poetry] were my cord to the placenta”), but also a warrior or fighter who has “lost the war.” And yet, “Poetry After the Occupation” also casts poetry as a traitor—”a spy speaking half-truths,” a “sly cheat” who has fooled the speaker into thinking she knows it: “all these years, I thought / I knew you // I was wrong.” How did others read these contradictions, which are both compelling and ample? Do folks read this as an ars poetica, or simply a chronicle of the poet’s struggle with the futility, or the failures of her art? I found Alicia Ostriker’s inclusion of the quote, “Art destroys silence,” to be instructive and affirmed by the poems in this collection—until the last poem. Instead, in lines like “what a waste” and “This is my protest / This is my folly,” and “Defeated, you step down / from your horse, silent // A tiger / A paper tiger” I hear echoes of W.H. Auden’s famous quote, “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen” and even Adorno’s sober declaration that “There can be no poetry after Auschwitz.” What do you folks think? Is this last poem an ars poetica, the poet’s renunciation of the art that has failed her (“whenever I came to look for you / you’d drift // deserting me”), or confirmation of Adorno’s grim denunciation? Or rather some Blakean combination of all three?

The Opposite of War -- Henk's Question

Amal al-Jubouri interrogates the significance of poetry in the midst and aftermath of war in "Poetry After the Occupation," addressing poetry as a figure with lines like "a slaver trading my memories / bidding my papers to strangers" and "You gather me into your mouth / a spy speaking half-truths" and "your cheap cell called Poem / your barren prison called Poet". In the same way that Celan continued to write poetry despite--or because of--Adorno's dictum that to write poetry after Auschwitz was "barbaric," al-Jubouri's exploration of poetry's significance in the context of war and suffering voices her fierce doubts about poetry through the medium of poetry. Thus, "Poetry After the Occupation" is one of the most complex and moving poems in the book. However, in M. Lynx Qualey's interview on ArabLit with Rebecca Gayle Howell, the co-translator of "Hagar Before the Occupation/ Hagar After the Occupation, Howell quotes Sarah Maguire approvingly: "translating poetry is the opposite of war". Given the complexity of al-Jubouri's attitude in "Poetry After the Occupation" is viewing poetry translation "as the opposite of war" simplistic? Is Howell overvaluing the power of translation here and thus inadvertently domesticating the text in furtherance of translator-as-hero? I apologize in advance for my questions not being open-ended enough, but this is really nagging at me. It is a significant quote, though, as Howell returns to its point again at the end of the interview. I went back and read the Maguire essay and it makes an involved argument about how, because the CIA covertly funded translation of Eastern Bloc poets during the Cold War, that the "CIA recognized that the translation of poetry could be a political act with significant consequences". While I am quoting out of context, and thus recommend reading the Maguire essay, does arguing that "translating poetry is the opposite of war" then imply that the CIA, by funding translation, was also the opposite of war?

Exile -- Talia's Questions

How do these poems, as we receive them, exhibit various types of exile? What distinguishes before and after, if there is a distinction? And why might that be an important (poetic/political) distinction to make? How does the translation of these poems comment on and/or further and/or limit - so, complicate - our understanding of exile?

The Distribution of Credit and Who Should Do What How -- Becky's Questions

As I began reading the "Foreword" and the "Translator's Preface" of _Hagar Before the Occupation/Hager After the Occupation_, I became bothered by the ways Al-Jubouri's text was presented, and I'm not quite sure to what extent this is a fair way to feel. First, I was annoyed that Alicia Ostriker seemed to base her work solely on the English translation, barely even acknowledging the fact that the text had a translator. While perhaps having her stamp of approval on the book in some way validates it and promotes it in a way it deserves, in what ways does Ostriker's intro limit the project? How does her "Foreword" influence the reading of the book? Secondly, I found myself annoyed by the way that Rebecca Gayle Howell seems very much in a position of superiority compared with her collaborator, Husam Qaisi. For instance, we don't read any words from him in the "Translator's Preface." While I do applaud the collaborative effort between these two translators and the author herself, I'm also not so sure that the book is presented in a collaborative kind of way. Did anyone else feel uncomfortable not getting Qaisi's voice at all? How are we to understand his role of creating "tables that broke the original Arabic poems into cells and rows of words and lines" and "provid[ing] other English synonyms, context clues, and any historical background," in addition to reading Howell's drafts (I mean, wasn't he doing more than just that?)? Shouldn't someone able to work across languages be introducing or providing the translator's note for the text? Who benefits here? Finally, what does all this suggest about the translator's role when his/her access to the original language is extremely limited?

To Translate or Not To Translate -- Adrienne's Question

In his interview with Loggernaut, Alcalay brings up the idea (fairly new to me) that some work should not be translated, particularly when “we are then only reproducing the process of getting something at no cost, of occluding the labor involved and the price one pays for that kind of knowledge.” Clearly Alcalay sees major issues in the production and consumption of translation, but how might this view be informed or complicated by his idea of “intellectual ethics”?

Thick Translation -- Adrienne's Question

Based on Howell’s interview and the text, including the foreword and translator’s preface, do you see _Hagar before the Occupation/Hagar after the Occupation_ as a work of “thick translation”? What in the text or Howell’s interview informs your response?