NOTESfounded the free verse movement in modern Arabic poetry. This poem was first
published in al-Baymtl’s collection titled Kitmbah calmal-Yln(Writing on Clay
1970), which was later included in his Dlwmn cAbd al-Wahhmb al- Baymtl
(Beirut: Dmr Al-cAwdah, 1972), pp. 487–90.
99 A reference to al->usayn Ibn cAllIbn AblYmlib, the grandson of the Prophet
Muhammad. Martyred with some family members in the 7th century,
al->usayn has become a living symbol of Shi‘ite resistance and sorrows.
100 A reference to the famous verse attributed to Majnnn Laylm, Qays ibn
al-Mulawwa., which is: “And God might help unite the separated (lovers) after /
They have thought that reunion was impossible.” See Ma’mnn Ibn Mu.yl
al-Dln al-Jannmn, Majnnn Laylm: Bayn al-Wmqicah wa- al-Usynrah(Beirut: Dmr
Al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah, 1990), p. 145.
101 A reference to the Tmq Kisrm(Arch of Chosroes), an impressive brick-vaulted
palace built in the ancient village of Ctesiphon on the river of Tigris in Iraq by
Sasanid kings (Chosroes) around AD 197–198. See Ctesiphon, The Oxford
Classical Dictionary, eds Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, 3rd edn,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. According to the footnote by the
poet, “Al-Tmq (The Arch) is a reference to the Arch of Chosroes which is located
near Baghdad. As children we used to go there and shout under the Arch so that
it echoes what we said.”
6 ENVISIONING EXILE: PAST ANCHORS AND
PROBLEMATIC ENCOUNTERS
1Ma.mnd Darwlsh, Limmdhmtarakta al-.ixmn wa.ldan(Why Have You Left the
Horse Alone?), (Bierut: Riad N. El-Rayyes, 1995), p. 141.
2Ma.mnd Darwlsh, “The Last Evening in this Land,” “Eleven Planets in the Last
Andalusian Sky,” in The Adam of Two Edens, eds Munir Akash and Daniel Moore
(New York: Jusoor and Syracuse University Press, 2000) p. 150.
3 Mahmoud Darwish, “The Tragedy of Narcissus, The Comedy of Silver,” in The
Adam of Two Edens, p. 186.
4 The Arabic term su‘lnk, also translated as vagabond, applies to a pre-Islamic
group of poets who were ostracized socially, and who created their own solidar-
ity against the tribal one, “relishing antisocial behavior and the hardships of
life.” See Roger Allen, The Arabic Literary Heritage, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), p. 109.
5 See Jonathan Culler, “On the Negativity of Modern Poetry: Friedrich,
Baudelaire, and the Critical Tradition,” in Languages of the Unsayable: The Play
of Negativity in Literature and Literary Theory, ed. Sanford Budick and Wolfgang
Iser (New York: Columbia University, 1989), p. 190.
6 Quoted in Franz Rosenthal, “The Stranger in Medieval Islam,” Arabica, XLIV
(1997), pp. 35–75, at p. 52.
7 Ibid., p. 46.
8 Ibid., p. 55.
9 Ibid., p. 56. Rosenthal used the Arabic terms for stranger and strangeness in
this quote.
10 Ibid., pp. 54–55.
11 Ibid., p. 37.
12 Ibid., p. 50.