Four Sisters from Zakaria by Ghassan Zaqtan

Continuing Poetry in Translation Week, here is a poem by Palestinian Poet Ghassan Zaqtan. He was supposed to give a reading at Poets House a few weeks ago, as part of his US tour to promote a new book of English translations of his work, but could not get a visa. We went ahead with the program, with his translator poet and doctor Fady Joudah reading and translating some of the work featured on a recent YouTube video Zaqtan made once it became evident that he would not be traveling to the U.S.

Ghassan Zaqtan

Joudah also talks about talks about translating him here.

You can hear this and another poem in both English and Arabic here at the PBS website. PBS'  video of him reading is here.

* Zakaria and Artouf are two Palestinian villages in the Khalil (Hebron) area whose occupants were forced to leave in 1948.

Four sisters from Zakaria
Four sisters 
climb the hill alone 
in black clothes. 

Four sisters sigh 
facing the thicket. 
Four sisters in the dark 
read wet letters. 
A train coming 

from Artouf passed 
behind the picture. 
A horse carrying 

a girl from Zakaria
neighs on the ridge 
across the plain. 
In the gorge 

clouds slowly pass. 
Four sisters 

from Zakaria, alone 
in black clothes 
on the hill.

Translated by Sargon Boulus

Four sisters from Zakariyya

Four sisters climb the mountain

alone 

in black clothes. 

Four sisters sigh in front of the grove.

Four sisters in the dark 

reading soaked letters.

There was a train

behind the photo passing from Artouf.

There was a horse
carrying a girl from Zakariyya

whinnying in the slope behind the plains. 

And the clouds were slowly passing

through the canyon.

Four sisters from Zakariyya

by the hill

alone 

in black clothes.

Translated by Fady Joudah, from Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me: And Other Poems  (Yale University Press, 2012)