Award-winning American poet Marilyn Hacker offers the brilliance of Lebanese poet Venus Khoury-Ghata in an exquisite translation
She says
the earth is so vast one can’t help but be lost like water from a broken jug
There is no fortress against the wind
the winter wanderer must count on the compassion of walls
—from “She Says”
Translated by celebrated American poet Marilyn Hacker, Venus Khoury-Ghata’s She Says explores the mythic and confessional attractions and repulsions of the French and Arabic imaginations with poems that open like “a suitcase filled with alphabets.” Sex, barrenness, grief, and death—the backdrop of a war-ravaged country—are always at the edges, made increasingly urgent by lines often jagged and spare, their music unhaltered. Khoury-Ghata is a vital voice in both her native and adopted languages and we are pleased to present this important collection in English.
