Selected Poems

Synopsis

Selected Poems brings together work by the poet Nouri Al-Jarrah, translated into Spanish by Ghadeer Abusneineh. Drawn from several of his most acclaimed collections, including Noah's Despair, Hamlet's Gardens, The Road to Damascus, and The Seven Days of Time, these poems trace an arc from the memory of a Damascene childhood to the rupture of exile and the devastation of war. Through mythological and religious figures and symbols such as Noah, Abel, Odysseus, Penelope, and the Aramean women, Al-Jarrah transforms the geography of Syria, Mount Qasyun, the Barada river, its caves and fields of anemones, into a landscape where the sacred and the contemporary merge. A selection of these poems was recited at the 14th International Poetry Festival of Costa Rica, held in San José in 2015, where this edition was published by the press of Casa de Poesía in Costa Rica.