Poems of Truth: Contemporary Arab Women Speak

 

Edited by Nathalie Handal

Northampton, MA: Interlink Books 2001, 355 pp.

 

This rich anthology goes a long way toward introducing contemporary Arab women poets, Arab-American women poets writing in English, and a few other women poets of Arab origin writing in French and Swedish. Its main virtue is that in one handsome volume it presents 209 poems of various lengths and styles by 83 women, some born in the Arab world and some elsewhere, but all rooted in Arab culture and experiencing the modern world as they carve their own identity.

 

The editor, Nathalie Handal, a well-known Arab-American poet represented in the anthology by three poems, is to be congratulated for compiling this useful volume, mostly from already-published English translations. She also commissioned many translations from Arabic in which she made editorial changes, worked in full collaboration with the translators on eight poems, and provided the translated text with substantial amendments in eight others. All in all, there are 40 translators.

 

Only someone who knows the complex work of editing, making wise selections, seeking qualified translators, and identifying and contacting copyright holders in many countries can fully appreciate Handal's efforts. In addition, she wrote a 62-page introduction providing a good historical overview of contemporary Arab women's poetry, outlining its major themes and trends, and demonstrating its creativity and diversity.

 

The poets are arranged in alphabetical order, from Arab-American Elmaz Abi-Nader to Lebanese Sabah al-Kharrat Zwein, and included among the poets one finds Abu-Dhabian Dhabya Khamees, Iraqi Nazik al-Mala'ika, Arab-American Naomi Shihab Nye, and Palestinian Fadwa Tuqan. Biographical notes on each poet are given at the end of the book, where the poets' names are also listed under 16 Arab countries even though some poets were not born there or do not live there. Andrée Chedid and Iman Mersal are listed under their birthplace Egypt, for example, rather than France and Canada respectively where they live. Handal herself and Lisa Suhair Majaj both live in America but are listed under Palestine, although neither was born there. It is "one's claim and profound sentiment that creates one's identity," explains the editor.

 

However, on reading these poets from A to Z, one is impressed by the symphony of their voices, singular yet united, expressing Arab hopes but also individual personal experiences that are unique and feminine. There is revolution in their themes, their techniques, their ideas and images. There is also love and tenderness and vision. But there is pain too: a passionate craving for a place under the sun, for equality and justice, for peace, for things natural to be natural and not as changed by man. These voices are distinctive, articulate, authentic, and they dare to say what men poets sometimes dissimulate. Despite their uneven quality as poetry, as a whole they are appealing.

 

Understandably not comprehensive, this anthology is however quite representative of the powerful poetry of Arab women and is a visible confirmation of its effective existence.