She Says

by Khoury-Ghata, Vénus; Hacker, Marilyn

• ISBN13: 9781555973834
• ISBN10: 1555973833
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-06-01
• Publisher: Graywolf Press

Summary

Award-winning American poet Marilyn Hacker offers the brilliance of Lebanese poet Veacute;nus Khoury-Ghata in an exquisite translation She says the earth is so vast one can't help but be lost like water from a broken jug There is no fortress against the wind the winter wanderer must count on the compassion of walls from "She Says" Translated by celebrated American poet Marilyn Hacker, Veacute;nus Khoury-Ghata'sShe Saysexplores the mythic and confessional attractions and repulsions of the French and Arabic imaginations with poems that open like "a suitcase filled with alphabets." Sex, barrenness, grief, and deaththe backdrop of a war-ravaged countryare always at the edges, made increasingly urgent by lines often jagged and spare, their music unhaltered. Khoury-Ghata is a vital voice in both her native and adopted languages and we are pleased to present this important collection in English.

Author Biography

VTnus Khoury-Ghata is a Lebanese poet and novelist who has been a resident
of France since 1973. She is the author of a dozen collections of poems and as many
novels. Her work has been translated into Italian, Russian, Dutch, German, and Arabic.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. ix
Words
In those days I know now words declaimed the wind	p. 5
Words	p. 7
Where do words come from?	p. 9
How to find the name of the fisherman who hooked the first word	p. 11
The prudent man looped his family to his belt	p. 13
Language at that time opened fire on every noise	p. 15
What do we know about the alphabets which didn't survive the rising of the waters	p. 17
The words which spring up on the borders of lips retain their terrors	p. 19
Words, she says, used to be wolves	p. 21
Words, she says, are like the rain everyone knows how to make them	p. 23
It was there and nowhere else	p. 25
The rain had few followers at that time	p. 27
Guilty of repeated forgetfulness	p. 29
There are words from poor peoples' gardens that crossbreed iron and thorns	p. 31
She Says
There were too many women for too few seasons	p. 35
She says / dig there where a shadow can stand upright	p. 37
The wind in the fig tree quiets down when she speaks	p. 39
She only opens her door to the winds	p. 41
Between her two windows is a mirror	p. 43
Without the wisteria	p. 45
Drunken bread on the table	p. 47
On the dark landing of her dreams	p. 49
The frost that year shattered both the indoors and outdoors	p. 51
He shakes her so she'll drop the words she stole	p. 53
Her voice comes back to her from the canary's cage	p. 55
In her dreams she thinks she is awake	p. 57
Seated on her doorstep made of deaf stones	p. 59
She lives in a high room next door to the clouds	p. 61
Autumn preceded summer by one day	p. 63
The dead she says	p. 65
Spitting in the wind brings happiness she says	p. 67
She carried her load of fog in all kinds of weather	p. 69
There is winter in her sleep	p. 71
She says / migrating birds won't replace the road	p. 73
The dignitary who bent his servant backwards till the storm was extinguished	p. 75
She says / there is a fire on the moon	p. 77
She tells her dreams to the angels who inadvertently cross her bed	p. 79
First / she kills the red hen that traces circles around her field	p. 81
Her walls and her bones aged together	p. 83
She puts her ear to the ground to listen to the buried voices clamor	p. 85
She understands from the plane trees staring in shock at the countryside	p. 87
She places her hands on the apple tree's hands	p. 89
She says / the names of the months are closed up in books	p. 91
Her house is a burial ground for mute objects	p. 93
Winter is painful to her	p. 95
It has snowed on her bed since her mirror contested the window	p. 97
The old woman has the deafened mourning of those who live on stones	p. 99
God will forgive me for having let the house wander away says the old woman	p. 101
It took her years to understand the wind's behavior	p. 103
At that time the earth was so high up	p. 105
Someone is speaking within the walls	p. 107
Stretched out close to the tree which breathes beside her	p. 109
Plowing at night means one less loaf from each furrow she says	p. 111
Once upon a time she had a book	p. 113
Her laundry will soak all night beneath the moon which washes hilltops	p. 115
Between twilight and crumbled bread	p. 117
From rails buried beneath the rubble	p. 119
A white odor of woman and declining summer stops them	p. 121
She opens her door without hesitation to the elm leaf on her threshold	p. 123
In the night of boxes they give up their linens	p. 125
The old man who doesn't know how to count	p. 127
The old man who left his shadow on the tracks	p. 129
The fire which ravaged the last comet stretched out at the saint's shrine	p. 131
They say / that he has blood under his fingernails	p. 133
He told stories the way you peel a fruit	p. 135
There were three of them who emerged from the night	p. 137
The wind she says is only good for tousling the broom-bushes	p. 139
The children knocked on every door	p. 141
She says / the earth is so vast	p. 143
They come from the same slope not the same hill	p. 145
It sometimes happens that the forest disperses itself	p. 147
A man is not an island	p. 149
Storks have been nesting in the church font	p. 151
The caravan that left the old town of Manama disappeared	p. 153
She prefers round years	p. 155
One day she says	p. 157
Why I Write in French	p. 159
Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved.