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  • Hagar Before the Occupation
  • Amal al-Jubouri (bio)
    Translated by Rebecca Gayle Howell (bio) and Husam Qaisi

She wanted to come home so she asked for directions from the ancients in her dreams:

Is the Tigris still as pure as Zamzam?Do lovers still look for each other at the Euphrates?

The fires of war— she tried to put them out with her own sleeves She shouted:

Watch yourselves! War is a blind lash—War is a whoreShe doesn’t care about anyoneJust her price, paid up front [End Page 211]

Amal al-Jubouri

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

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.

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