by Guido Monte
Multilingual Poetry
Buildings © 2014 Nadine Kaadan |
(Swans - June 16, 2014)
le monde tourne
el mundo se vuelve
the world turns,
but the pain remains.
the desert and the uproar.
we wander among messy houses,
abandoned,
we wander by car, by boat, by plane
running for no one knows where,
(for nowhere?)
looking bored
the news from bright screens.
the world is too tired of suffering,
now seeks rest.
we do not remember the past:
we continue in aenigmate mechanically,
while dropping the last snow,
martyrs still crying behind the loft.
the flower withered, the woman betrayed,
the dead end, a trumpet in the silence:
the sky never looks us from above
el cielo
nosotros
meanwhile here they're new horrors
aquí están los nuevos horrores,
horrors i no longer even have
the strength to imagine
erèipia màura tès zoès
says constantine,
black rubble of life
picture: Buildings by Nadine Kaadan (2014).
Since the age of 8, Nadine Kaadan hasn't stopped writing and illustrating children's books -- she simply knew that it was her calling in life. Her mission is to spread reading culture in the Arab world, in a way that is inspired by Syria's rich heritage. Nadine graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in the University of Damascus in 2007, and acquired a Masters in Illustration at Kingston University, UK. Currently she is doing a second Masters in Art and Politics at Goldsmiths University in London, UK. She has published over 15 books in the Arab region with various publishers, and her stories sometimes touch on delicate subjects like the current troubled situation in the Arab world, and other times they are just plain fun. Her book Leila... Answer Me! won the Anna Lindh Award for the Best Fiction Book for children with special needs, and now it's officially being used to teach Arabic language courses at Harvard University, Tufts University, and Wellesley College in the United States.
"constantine" is Constantine Kavafis, and his verse is transliterated by Irene Parisi.
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Guido Monte on Swans (with bio). Also, please check Guido's entry on Wikipedia. (back)