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You Can Be the Last Leaf
You Can Be the Last Leaf: Selected Poems | Maya Abu Al-Hayyat
10 posts | 3 read | 1 to read
Translated from the Arabic and introduced by Fady Joudah, You Can Be the Last Leaf draws on two decades of work to present the transcendent and timely US debut of Palestinian poet Maya Abu Al-Hayyat. Art. Garlic. Taxis. Sleepy soldiers at checkpoints. The smell of trash on a winter street, before our wild rosebush, neglected / by the gate, / blooms. Lovers who dont return, the possibility that you yourself might not return. Making beds. Cleaning up vomit. Reading recipes. In You Can Be the Last Leaf, these are the ordinary and profoundsometimes tragic, sometimes dreamy, sometimes almost frivolousmoments of life under Israeli occupation. Here, private and public domains are inseparable. Desire, loss, and violence permeate the walls of the home, the borders of the mind. And yet that mind is full of its own fierce and funny voice, its own preoccupations and strangenesses. It matters to me, writes Abu Al-Hayyat, what youre thinking now / as you coerce your kids to sleep / in the middle of shelling: whether its coming up with plans / to solve the worlds problems, plans that eliminate longing from stories, remove exhaustion from groans, or dreaming of a war / thats got no war in it, or proclaiming that I dont believe in survival. In You Can Be the Last Leaf, Abu Al-Hayyat has created a richly textured portrait of Palestinian interiorityat once wry and romantic, worried and tenacious, and always singing itself.
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heatherspoetlife
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This is a beautiful collection of poems that deliver so much about what it was like in Palestine before 2023

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heatherspoetlife
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I couldn't get the format of the poem to save, but I love the poem that begins with this passage. This has been an amazing poetry collection.

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heatherspoetlife
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heatherspoetlife
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I have a feeling I'm going to love this collection. This line is out of the introduction and it's setting things up well. It was a timely selection in our club, and I'm looking forward to it, even though it will probably break my heart. As poetry often does

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heatherspoetlife
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LadyCait84
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Pickpick

This translated collection of a Palestinian author/poet‘s work was only available to me in fragments. Some of the imagery, many of the references, & the backdrop — or sometimes the front-facing focus — of a life surrounded by war…are things I can only loosely grasp & I no doubt missed much that was buried in subtext within her lines. But it made me feel & consider, & as I read I tried to “listen” hard.

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TheSpineView
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dabbe Yowza. 💙💚💙 1y
TheSpineView @dabbe 👍😍 1y
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Honeybeebooks
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Pickpick

Beautifully translated. Maya Abu Al-Hayyat‘s poems are gritty, evocative and heart-wrenching. It took some time to wade through this work as I was often hollowed out reading each poem. ⭐️⭐️⭐️+

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Honeybeebooks
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“The hater resembles the hater and the murderer, the murderer.”

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Honeybeebooks
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“I am therefore they point their rifles at me.” 😢 I first read this line after a shooting. It was another sucker punch.