Ghassan Zaqtan

One incredible poem, translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah, is Ghassan Zaqtan's "You're Not Alone in the Wilderness" in TheWolf, from Oct. 2011, issue 25. It's a gorgeous, lush poem with the air of the medieval or ancient. This type of poetry is a modern kind of Shelley, an entrancing look at a tale out of the mysteries of time. It's incredible.

Here's an excerpt:

In Jabal Najmeh, by the woods, the wizard will stop me
by a passage for boats with black masts
where the dead sit before dawn in black garments and straw masks,
a passage for the birds
where white fog swims and gates open in the brush
and where someone is talking down the slope
and bells are heard and the rustles of flapping wings

resemble the forest passing over the mountain and nicking the night!

…and peasants, fishermen and hunters, and awestruck soldiers, Moabite,

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