#Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature

[majestativa]

Blood Quintessenced by night.

— MOHAMMED HMOUDANE ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Guy Bennett, (2013)

[garadinervi]

Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, Edited and with commentaries by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2013

[j-unos]

I see the fake Hafez article going around again, and that will leave a bad taste in your mouth. As a palate cleanser, I do highly recommend this collection of poems! You can pick up a used copy for just a few dollars and it’s iirc almost 800 pages of content! Beautiful translations and informative introductions and notes on each section.

Here’s the summary:

In this fourth volume of the landmark "Poems for the Millennium" series, Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour present a comprehensive anthology of the written and oral literatures of the Maghreb, the region of North Africa that spans the modern nation states of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania, and including a section on the influential Arabo-Berber and Jewish literary culture of Al-Andalus, which flourished in Spain between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. Beginning with the earliest pictograms and rock drawings and ending with the work of the current generation of post-independence and diasporic writers, this volume takes in a range of cultures and voices, including Berber, Phoenician, Jewish, Roman, Vandal, Arab, Ottoman, and French. Though concentrating on oral and written poetry and narratives, the book also draws on historical and geographical treatises, philosophical and esoteric traditions, song lyrics, and current prose experiments. These selections are arranged in five chronological "diwans" or chapters, which are interrupted by a series of "books" that supply extra detail, giving context or covering specific cultural areas in concentrated fashion. The selections are contextualized by a general introduction that situates the importance of this little-known culture area and individual commentaries for nearly each author.

[ihaveastorminme]

I have a lover - Hafsa Bint Hamdun

I have a lover who can’t be budged by reproach & if I leave him he asks out of spite: have you ever known a man like me before? To which I retort, & have you ever seen a woman quite like me?\

Translated by Joseph Mulligan

Source: Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour, University of California Press, 2013

[representation-matters]

Road of Clouds

                           Until now your visions were unclear to me                                      Your horizon, too far to help                                              I follow your steps                                      Melt in your flawless crystal                                Tell you the torment of my secrets                                                        In                                                   Passion                                                 I name you:                                            My sister nomad                                                  Oh cloud,                                                 So distant —Ouidad Benmoussa. Trans. Emma Hayward. Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature. Ed. Pierre Joris & Habib Tengour. Berkeley: U of Cal P, 2012.

[majestativa]

… you who understand the secret signs in poetry.

— ABDELAZIZ AL-MAGHRAOUI ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Abdelfetah Chenni, (2013)

[majestativa]

Her light is an ecstasy born of pain.

— HADDA ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Stefania Pandolfo, (2013)

[majestativa]

Her gaze mesmerized me with its siren’s spell.

— MOHAMED SIBARI ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Joseph Mulligan, (2013)

[majestativa]

Be patient, hide your burden; sleep naked on thorns, wait for a brighter day.

— SIDI ABDERRAHMAN EL MAJDOUB ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Abdelfetah Chenni, (2013)

[majestativa]

I love how the fog sweeps over me, swallows the span of existence.

— MOHAMED SEBBAGH ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Madeleine Campbell, (2013)

[majestativa]

You are a vertigo with neither beginning nor end.

— TOURIA MAJDOULINE ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Norddine Zouitni & Abdellah Benlamine, (2013)

[majestativa]

The soul: a chaos of light.

— ABDELMAJID BENJELLOUN ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Rosmarie Waldrop, (2013)

[majestativa]

Consumed by longing, you liquefy. Set ablaze by passion, you give light.

— HADDA ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Stefania Pandolfo, (2013)

[majestativa]

When I listen to enchanting music I shake my head as if telling all the pain of my life to my angels. The raw flower of love.

— ABDELMAJID BENJELLOUN ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Rosmarie Waldrop, (2013)

[majestativa]

All is confined to the narrowness of a sigh, to a methodic ritual that uniformly resumes fantasies, [...] subliminal duration with talismanic virtues, in a single, unique cycle of tears and abandon.

— MOSTAFA NISSABOURI ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Guy Bennett, (2013)

[majestativa]

“What’s that book about?” he demanded.

“It’s about a man who doesn’t understand this world,” I said. “He hurts himself and everybody who comes near him.”

He nodded, lifted his glass, and drank. When he had finished, he said: “You’re crazy.”

— MOHAMED CHOUKRI ⚜️ Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, transl. by Paul Bowles, (2013)