The Palestine Literature Festival

Last night was the opening event of the Palestine Literature Festival at the Ottoman Court. The amphitheater was full, and the crowd was beautiful. The young, hip, partially-westernized but proudly Palestinian crowd was out in force, plus a slew of Western transplants, and us short-termers. Here is the bio of the first woman who spoke. I'm trying to figure out how to put in an audio file of her voice, which was incredible. If you have never been exposed to formal Arabic, her poem would have been a good place to start! 

Asmaa Azaizeh was born in the village of Duburiya in Palestine’s Southern Galilee region, in 1985. She is a TV correspondent and presenter for the London-based channel al Ghad al Araby. She has written for various Palestinian and Arab publications alongside working with various cultural initiatives. Her first collection of poetry, Liwa, was published in 2011 and won the AM Qattan prize. Her second collection As the Woman From Lydd Gave Birth To Me is forthcoming. She has contributed to anthologies, magazines, and festivals around the world. Her poems have been translated into English, German, Swedish, French, Dutch, Italian, and Persian. 

The program of the festival had this introduction to the nature of the festival: 

"Staging a travelling literary festival in Palestine is certainly a challenge, but we can't imagine PaleFest working any other way. As our international guests move from the weaponised economics of Ramallah through the siege of Jerusalem to the evisceration of Al Khalil and the ruins of Ein Hod they understand the different aspects of the occupation. In each city we work with our partner organisations and some of the finest voices in Palestin'e irrepressible literary scene to produce a series of unique events. In besieged Gaza, artists based there will also deliver events under the PaleFest banner." 

While I waited for the event to begin, between sessions of staring at the people around me, I read about another poet whom I'd never read or even heard of: Wallace Stevens. 

The idea of a two-faced person has come up often in the literature classroom this year, from Dr. Ridgeon in Doctor's Dilemma, and Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi (not the mention the Duchess herself, in a softer sense, when she lies to her brothers, and to herself in telling Antonio that everything will be OK after their marriage), to Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, who show remarkable bravado but also have lines that reveal intense fear and uncertainty. Wallace Stevens brings another meaning to the idea of "two faced," a less pejorative meaning. He was an insurance trader during the day, and, according to Schjeldahl, (I just had to write that name) "the quintessential American poet of the twentieth century".

It makes me sad to think of men with literary passion and genius being contained in suburban lives and day jobs, roles foisted upon them by social expectation. Stevens apparently struggled with depression his whole life. What if such men were encouraged by society to pursue their literary passion with abandon? What if they were allowed to live the way Gabriel Garcia Marquez did in his early years as a writer, as described by him, in Bogota, Colombia, surrounded by the literary heavy weights of his day? Perhaps then, Wallace might have had as significant a role in the American public life as Marquez did toward the end of his life (as described here by my favourite profile writer.) If we allowed more people to gain legitimacy as a non-politicised "voice of the nation," the political discussion might take on broader scope. 

One of Stevens's poems is "Sunday Morning", whose first stanza is below: 

I. 

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late 

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, 

And the green freedom of a cockatoo 

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate 

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. 

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark 

Encroachment of that old catastrophe, 

As a calm darkens among water-lights. 

The pungent oranges and bright, green wings 

Seem things in some procession of the dead, 

Winding across wide water, without sound. 

The day is like wide water, without sound, 

Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet 

Over the seas, to silent Palestine, 

Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

Hm. For me this stanza evokes the contradiction between the magnificent luxury and beauty of our (my) lives, and past suffering of which we should be recognisant of on a Sunday morning, whether in a service full of pomp and circumstance or in Quaker silence. We ought to dwell on those who have less, who are suffering, who are in need of prayers, even as we enjoy "late coffee" (like I'm having at La Vie cafe right now) and "oranges in a sunny chair." The elements of our heavenly morning "mingle to dissipate the holy hush of ancient sacrifice." Indeed, Christ's suffering is a silent mist that wafts through my Sunday morning mind while I "dream a little" of my wonderful future life (at Earlham, teaching literature, visiting new places, meeting new people). The "encroachment of that old catastrophe" threatens our easiness, and is actually not so old, since injustice is really only ever down the road.

The "wide water", "without sound", at first may seem a buffer zone, separating me from the procession of the dead. Indeed my very luxurious day is like "wide water". But I (like Christ!) am able to walk across it, "to silent Palestine". The proximity of my dreams to the "dominion of the blood and sepulchre" is emphasised again. Those two realities are too close for comfort on a Sunday morning, I think.

On another note, and with a half smile, I take issue with the description of Palestine as silent. It is many things, but not silent. 

- children shouting at a table on the other side of the garden, 

- the chickens in the back garden crowing, 

- cars honking while they watch someone try to drive over a sidewalk, 

- some sort of amplified auction going on (has been for over an hour) in the next building, with one of those mikes that reverberates the voice of the speaker

- the Palestinian folk music on the sound system at this cafe, 

- and the call to prayer. 

- This morning the construction site next to my house started up at 6:30 with someone sanding the side of the building, or that's what it looked like from my vantage point