Poems of Engagement. Poems of Resistance. A Review of a Palestinian Poet’s new book.

Chaos, Crossing, the new book of poetry of Olivia Elias, takes us on a journey through the anguish and challenges of the inner-outer world

A Palestinian friend in Nablus told me a decade ago more Palestinians attended the funeral in 2008 of beloved Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, 67, than the funeral of President Yasser Arafat four years earlier.

It may or may not be true. Both men received a three-day state funeral, only granted twice in more than 70 years plus of occupation.

Western poets find themselves marginalised compared to the voices of Palestinian poets. Can you imagine a state funeral of a poet in the West with many citizens attending candlelight vigils. We might find ourselves hard to name a living poet in our country.

Chaos, Crossing, the new book of poetry of Olivia Elias, enters the category of poems of Palestinian resistance with the poet’s willingness to employ cut-to-the bone language to convey truths of six million Palestinians denied political, social-economic liberation by its neighbours. Over four million belong to the global diaspora of Palestinians.

Poems of resistance do not dominate her collection of poems. In her English language debut, Olivia takes us on a journey through the anguish and challenges of the inner-outer world while noting on

Page 137

we wanted to repair the world

repair ourselves as well

but didn’t know how.

Page 145

life holds so many surprises

in reserve.

Readers will recognise Buddhist-Taoist undertones in the poetry addressing the truth of suffering and primary conditions for it and the uncertainties needing attention.

Precarity (Note from reviewer. Precarity means uncertainty)

optimal training

perfect form

well prepared

for the precarity

of the time that remains

In-your-Face poems

Olivia told me she is a Palestinian and an internationalist currently living in Paris. She kindly sent me a copy of the poems before printing. As with other Palestinian poets, she offers the world a glimpse, an insight, into the besieged lives of her people. Some poets couch their criticism of the oppressors in the nuances of language, so the reader senses intuitively the meaning in the poem. Olivia regularly sides step any nuance preferring in-your-face poems.

For example, Sacrifice comprises two verses, eight lines and nine lines. Here is the second verse.

a life in its own shadow

held at gunpoint by

snipers and twenty-year-old kids

with death as their harness

while the men in sidelocks

& the believers

In the return of God-the-Son

Crucified-on-the-cross

go on chanting.

Sacrifice fires a written mortar in nine lines at two major institutions—the IDF (Israeli military) and two religions engaged in the harness of chanting.

Her poetry also includes the voice of history, of culture, of conflict and vivid experiences in the 79-year-old life of the poet.

Her first poem in Chaos/Crossing

Migration of Stars probably addresses the Palestinian diaspora.

Here are the first four lines.

In this country the stars were not fixed

they could easily fly off…in a single go…migrate to

regions where happiness   is less precarious.

and that’s precisely what happened….

Translated from the French with the original French on the opposite page, the 58 poems include poems with titles, such as Conspiracy of Trees and Old Stones, Villa (hunger strike, 40^th day), Tender, Europe, Mantra, Other Name and The Dream Wouldn’t Leave Me.

Born in February 1944, she turned to publishing her poetry in the last decade focussing on her international experience, the Palestinian experience and life in exile.

From around 1993 to 2019, I made annual visits to Palestine offering workshops addressing suffering such as trauma of those whose loves ones were assassinated, summary arrests of adults/children and destruction of lives and homes. My host in Nablus spent eight years a political prisoner while her husband spent 16 years.

In the past 20 years. I don’t recall any Palestinian telling me he or she had a drop of confidence of a two-state solution ever becoming reality. Palestinian representatives told me they regard the two-state solution as a US, EU and Israeli invention for international consumption with no real interest to implement.

In his forward to the book, Palestinian poet. Najwan Darwish (unrelated to Mahmoud Darwish) writes: “Poetry, however, is a form of salvation. It may not make the pain tolerable but it keeps the pain from becoming trite, banal. By turning pain into art, we protect it from lies and from being disgracefully forgotten, thereby preserving the dignity of its victims.”

A powerful and beautiful statement on the significance of resistance poetry.

As Kareem James Abu-Zeid, the translator of the poems from the French,  concludes in her Afterword, “As Olivia bars relentless witness to the atrocities of the world, she also includes Taoist and Buddhist undertones, musings on old age and dying that are imbued with a childlike sense of wonder. There is pain and suffering, true, but there is also joy and glory

Transference of Shadows

I love much of Israel, but the state of Israel will never be at peace with itself until it makes peace with its neighbours. The current Israeli government’s determination to marginalise the Israeli Supreme Court is an internal example of deep-seated divisions within the country.

Palestinians and their poets will not go quietly into the night.

International reflections found in the Chaos, Crossings include Black Lives Matter, promises, being taught kindness and being a stranger. Like the masterful film (movie) Swimmers (on the experience of two refugees fleeing Syria to the West), this book of poetry speaks to us of the lives of those under siege because of political persecution, flight from the homeland, sacrifice and dreams.

The book serves a metaphor and reflection for our insecure and unsettled present and future.

We are also under an occupation of our mind owing to climate crisis, pandemics, threat of a world war, via the war in Ukraine, diminishing resources, famine, floods, fires, over population and the tyranny of authoritarian political/corporate leaders.

I commend readers to explore the poems of Chaos, Crossing for its forensic perceptions. Yes, this book addresses Palestine but it is about us as well.

Read/listen and learn from the poets of engagement and the poets of resistance.

Chaos, Crossing

Olivia Elias

World Poetry Books

New York,

USA.

ISBN 978-1-954218-07-9

Translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Introduction. Najwan Darwish

Book includes brief notes to 16 of the poems.