#Sheikha Hlewa

[fiercynn]

palestinian poets: sheikha hlewa

sheikha hlewa (شيخة حليوى) was born in dhayl ‘araj, an unrecognized bedouin village near haifa. now living in jaffa, she is a lecturer on arab feminism at ben gurion university. her first short story collection, The Order C345 (C345 الطلبيّة), published in 2018, won the best short story book award in the arab world 2019–2020. she has published two other collections of short stories and one collection of poems, which have been translated into many languages.

IF YOU READ JUST ONE POEM BY SHEIKHA HLEWA, MAKE IT THIS ONE: "Last Dance" (translated by yosefa raz)

OTHER POEMS ONLINE BY SHEIKHA HLEWA THAT I LOVE

Nakba (translated by fady joudah) at the baffler

Elevator Speech (translated by kareem james abu-zeid) at fikra magazine

Exam (translated by fady joudah) at the baffler

Memory (translated by fady joudah) at the baffler)

[inhernature]

Last Dance

By Sheikha Hlewa

Translated by Yosefa Raz

O Stranger,

I am pulling you onto the noisy dance floor but you

bite half moons around your fingernails.

The waiter asks: is this how they dance in your country?

You say: no. This is how they walk on water. 

You tell him how you switched places with a barren tree

how you stayed silent when they pierced your flesh with lost dog signs, 

how you injected blue ants in your veins.

And I remind you: when you prayed standing on your head 

shipwrecked letters came crumbling from your nose. 

O Stranger, 

I hold your hand and lead you under the victory arch. 

You tickle yourself under your armpits and laugh at the passers-by:

In my land they line the eyes of kids with kohl against the evil eye

until the planes return with glad tidings in their belly. 

In my land men leave sticky threads on the thighs of women

a moment before leaving for a final battle, 

and here you make love on the sidewalks

and die at crosswalks on fancy boulevards.

O Stranger, 

Let’s buy a “double espresso”

drink it near the bridge and talk “small talk,” 

we’ll find synonyms for hidden cellars and messianic arrivals. 

You will whisper to the bridge:

My mother burned the books I left behind 

and fed an old battle survivor and the neighborhood cats

with the cooking water. 

She feared the heresies of the written word 

and I grew bewildered by the interpretation of bridges.  

O Stranger, let me write you a homeland. 

— No. In the hell that I wrote, all the homelands

burned in the last chapter. 

(Source/Poem Source)

Sheikha Hlewa (شيخة حليوى) was born in Dhayl ‘Araj, an unrecognized Bedouin village near Haifa. Now living in Jaffa, she is a lecturer on Arab feminism at Ben Gurion University. Her short story collection, The Order C345 (C345 الطلبيّة), published in 2018, won the best short story book award in the Arab world 2019–2020. Her work has been translated into Hebrew, German, French, and Bulgarian. 

Yosefa Raz is a poet, translator, and scholar. Her work has recently appeared in Entropy,Jacket2, Guernica, Protocols, the Boston Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her scholarship is focused on the often fraught transformation of prophecy into poetry. She is a lecturer in the Department of English Language & Literature at the University of Haifa.

[translations2]

기억, 셰이카 흘레와

Memory

By Sheikha Hlewa

Translated by Lena Tuffaha

All is disordered in my usurped Bedouin memory.

The young man who was electrocuted as he watered his field

was a potential groom for several little girls.

His pores were potential lanterns in the dark after that charge of light.

In all possibilities, memory betrays me.

Was he a groom or a deferred lantern or a green field?

My mother has a habit of squaring every detail in my memories.

The young man became a field, the green a lantern,

and electricity never once reached my village.

                                        —Haifa

_

기억

셰이카 흘레와

레나 투파하 아랍어에서 영어로 옮김

빼앗긴 나의 베두인 기억 속 모든 것이 엉망이다.

밭에 물을 주다 감전사를 당한 젊은 남자는

여자아이 여럿의 신랑이 될 수도 있었다.

그의 땀구멍은 빛에 습격당한 그 후 닥친 어둠 속 손전등이 될 수도 있었다.

기억이 나를 배반할 가능성이 농후하다.

그는 신랑이었는가 유예된 손전등이었는가 초록빛 밭이었는가?

엄마에게는 내 기억 속 모든 세부사항을 제곱하는 습관이 있다.

젊은 남자는 밭이 되었고, 초록이 되었고, 손전등이 되었고,

전기는 단 한 번도 우리 마을에 닿지 않았다.

                                        —하이파에서

[howl-at--the-sun]

To All My Fellow Lovers Of Poetry

There are some websites I would like to share with you all!

This page links to a collection of poems from Palestinian poets. All of them are absolutely beautiful but I would especially recommend How I Kill Soldiers by Ahlam Bsharat and Nakba by Sheikha Hlewa.

These are all of the poets that have been killed since October 7th, I would recommend taking a look at them and their work. These are the people that the Zionist occupation wanted to silence, so it is our duty to share them as far as we possible can.

This is another website that compiles work from Palestinian poets!

If anyone else has any resources when it comes to Palestinian poetry, please do add on in the notes!

[arablit]

Lit & Found: Lyric Dispatches from Palestine

Lit & Found: Lyric Dispatches from Palestine

In case you have missed it, the special Baffler magazine section on poetry from Palestine, curated by Fady Joudah, continues to unspool: Eight poems by six different poets, all translated by Joudah, has appeared on the site, starting with Rawan Hussin’s “Dawn” on June 1, and most recently featuring Sheikha Hlewa’s “Nakba” on July 13. The poems are sharp and narrative, ranging from the…