#LIKE A STRAW BIRD IT FOLLOWS ME SERIES#

#LIKE A STRAW BIRD IT FOLLOWS ME SERIES#

The third section of the book is a series of вЂњPretexts.вЂќ This sectionвЂ™s form stifles the present from actualizing. In the collection, there are вЂњAdditions to the PastвЂќ but virtually no discussion of the future, other than the references to death. Sin goes to the neckвЂ¦ there I raise my ghosts, feed themДЄnd they swim like black horses in my sleep. вЂ¦the ghosts that I picked off the road and gathered like necklaces ZaqtanвЂ™s dead dance in wet grass: вЂњBeneath the light/ their dust was coming apart// it had rained at night/ all night.вЂќ In this collection the dead have the freedom to dance and come alive while the living are bound by the вЂњrendezvous in the gist of speech.вЂќ Zaqtan is apt to write about the weaknesses of the human condition and the desire to escape lifeвЂ™s mundane veracity, вЂњI must leave itвЂ¦ because/ I want to remove the dust that has settled after me on the cypress.вЂќ ( A Regretful Young Jaheer Man). The haunting and desolate plunder of the dead and their remains is set against the magical surrealist backdrop of a deluge-like reality, a mythical aquatic world with salt and fish, shells and spirits. The drowned provide the living with fish the dead commoners provide the poet with inspiration for his vocation the ruins and shells of the ocean make for ornaments and jewelry to decorate the living and their material lives. In poems like The Song of the Drowned and The Islands, the living depend on the dead - the living literally feed off the dead. That accumulate behind them and push themДЄnd as the circle closes in on their washing bodiesД«ite the ribbed surface with their incisors вЂ¦Д®ach time they string two shells they hum

In the poem, T he Song of the Drowned, Zaqtan writes: вЂњAnd beneath the mud/ the drowned prepare fish for the nets.вЂќ In a similarly related poem The Islands, Zaqtan writes: ZaqtanвЂ™s obsession with death is the foundation from which life is fostered. No theme is more prevalent and so tightly stitched into the fabric of ZaqtanвЂ™s poetry than death. In Like A Straw Bird It Follows Me, Joudah seamlessly laces the poems together into one fragile assemblage in which themes and images emerge, fade, only to reemerge. The collection reads like a soundtrack chronicling the state of Palestinian political prisoners, particularly in light of the ubiquitous strategy of starvation as resistance.

Each poem evokes anxiety, stemming from a constant state of potential death, or constant reminders of the limitations of life. The significance and nuance of ZaqtanвЂ™s contribution against the political backdrop of Palestinian reality can be understood as a poetic rendering of bio-politics. вЂњIвЂ™ve been dead for a long time, as you know,вЂќ Zaqtan writes in a letter to his daughter (The OrchardвЂ™s Song). Ghassan ZaqtanвЂ™s paralyzing poetry, translated by Fady Joudah, is laden with ruminations on death.

Like a straw bird it follows me