Baghdad Before the Occupation
- Baghdad Before the Occupation
—My solitude, to which I always returned City that kept my secret religion in her libraries
I came back to rest my head on her shoulder and with just one look, she saw how tired I was
She wrapped her gardens, her fragrance, around me She warmed me and in her eyes I saw how stupid I’d been
My poems were tears that reached my beloved long before I did [End Page 210]
Amal al-Jubouri, a native of Iraq, is the author of five collections of poetry in Arabic: Wine from Wounds (1986); Words, Set Me Free! (1994); Enheduanna, Priestess of Exile (1999); 99 Veils (2003); and Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation (2008), which will be published in English in November. She lives and writes in Berlin, and is the founder and editor of East West Publishing.
Rebecca Gayle Howell’s poems and translations appear or are forthcoming in Ninth Letter, 32 Poems, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Jules Chametzky Prize in Literary Translation from the Massachusetts Review and a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her translation of Amal al-Jubouri’s Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation will be published in November by Alice James Books.
