{"id":22109,"date":"2012-10-01T09:35:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T16:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=22109"},"modified":"2012-10-07T22:54:01","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T05:54:01","slug":"marwan-makhouls-land-of-the-sad-passiflora-jaffa-theatre-book-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=22109","title":{"rendered":"Marwan Makhoul’s Land of the Sad Passiflora – Jaffa Theatre Book Launch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Marwan Makhoul\/Photo: Raday Rubinstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1965, the poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) recited his poem “Identity Card” before a large gathering in Nazareth. The opening lines, “Write down! I am an Arab”, are echoed in Marwan Makhoul’s poem “An Arab at Ben Gurion Airport”. On Saturday evening, these words were recited again at the Arab-Hebrew Theater in Jaffa, where a diverse and enthusiastic audience gathered to celebrate the new translation of Makhoul’s book, Land of the Sad Passiflora<\/em> (published by Keshev). “An Arab at Ben Gurion Airport” was recited in Hebrew by the editor, Almog Behar, and then in Arabic by the poet himself. His voice reverberating under the vaulted ceiling of the theater, Makhoul read his words with elegance and power, and an almost spiritual atmosphere permeated the room as audience members followed the Hebrew translation in their books.<\/p>\n

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Marwan Makhoul reading from his book of poems Land of the Sad Passiflora\/Photo: Raday Rubinstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The event was attended by some of the most distinguished and influential figures in Israel’s artistic community. Musician Mira Awad sang “I, Yosef”, a setting of another poem by Mahmoud Darwish, and dedicated her song “Bahlawan” (“Acrobat”) to Makhoul. She described working with Makhoul on the music for his 2009 play, Not Noah’s Ark. The play’s director, Norman Issa, hosted the poetry event, and his humor instantly put the audience at ease.<\/p>\n

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Mira Awad\/Photo: Raday Rubinstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Norman Issa\/Photo: Raday Rubinstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ronny Somekh, one of Israel’s leading poets, praised Makhoul’s poetic style. “Marwan leads us off the highway and turns the lane into a metaphor,” he illustrated. Makhoul’s poetry paints a wide spectrum of themes \u2013 from love poems, through descriptions of the land, to character portraits, said Professor Rafi Weichert, chief editor and founder of Keshev Poetry Publications. He explained that character portraits are especially hard to write: “You need bravery to describe people.”<\/p>\n

Makhoul spoke of his roots and the works that influenced him and his writing, such as the poems of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani’s Land of Sad Oranges. He expressed his gratitude to Helicon, the Society for the Advancement of Poetry in Israel, for being the first to welcome him into the Israeli writing community. Israel Prize laureate Professor Sasson Somekh described the early days of the Hebrew-Arabic poetic collaboration, and Makhoul’s work with Helicon.<\/p>\n

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Sasson Somekh\/Photo: Raday Rubinstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The translation of the book was a collaborative effort, said editor Almog Behar, discussing Makhoul’s experience of hearing his poems read in Hebrew. This discussion was followed by a question-and-answer session with a very active audience, and a passionate discussion of poetry and politics ensued. “If I could,” Makhoul said, “I would erase all borders. They are cuts and scratches scraped across the earth.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Marwan Makhoul and Almog Behar\/Photo: Raday Rubinstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1965, the poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) recited his poem “Identity Card” before a large gathering in Nazareth. The opening lines, “Write down! I am an Arab”, are echoed in Marwan Makhoul’s poem “An Arab at Ben Gurion Airport”. On Saturday evening, these words were recited again at the Arab-Hebrew Theater in Jaffa, where a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}