Arabic } Alps

brandon shimoda writes:

"i wanted to send you... an arabic translation of the third section (the food section) of the "trinity/neutrality/the draft" poem from THE ALPS, translated by lebanese poet sabah zwein. my girlfriend and i read in beirut and damascus a few weeks ago, and i read this poem on both occasions--the first time to a small crowd of devoted listeners (including the governor of south lebanon), following a 30 course meal, and preceding a dance party at a tiny, unnamed communist bar, with bowls of half-frozen fruit and a loaded rifle behind the counter, and the second to a packed, smoke-filled hotel basement dive bar in the new, dirty-glittery section of damascus. i only brought two copies of the book with me, but i gave them both to poets in beirut--sabah zwein being one of them, and iskandar habache, a poet and writer for the as-safir political daily, the other. but, flim now exists in lebanon, among the mattresses of cheese, silver earth rising off the mediterranean, and mid-day calls to prayer, with sandwiches."