I Sing From the Window of Exile

by Dareen Tatour

Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour shot to worldwide attention when she was jailed in 2016 for the ‘crime’ of writing a poem, ‘Resist, my people, resist them’. Her defiance, Kafkaesque trial and ultimate release amidst an international outcry, was chronicled in her memoir, ‘My Threatening Poem’, published by Drunk Muse Press in 2021. Now, ‘I Sing From the Window of Exile’ brings together her first collection of poems in English translation, alongside the original Arabic texts, and offers a comprehensive view of the work of this remarkable poet. From her exile in Sweden, Dareen writes achingly of her love for Palestine, lost and shattered relationships with people, places and time; she recalls the violence and humiliations inflicted on Palestinian women prisoners under Israeli rule; and she sends out a passionate rallying call for humanity and justice. These are poems that sing off the page by a poet who never flinches from drawing deep on her own history, and that of her people.

Paperback

Published March 1, 2023

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

In frantic tenderness, the dove tells
its panic-stricken flock
From the air of this city, take
provisions for our exile
and a remedy
for all the sighs that are yet to come.

Hard to rate and review a collection of poetry that is so heavily steeped in tragedy and politics, so take all of this with a grain and salt.
For being a collection of an artist who got imprisoned for a poem, this collection is appropriately ripe with notions of anger, sadness, rebellious vigor, and direct mentions of key points and victims of the Palestine-Israel conflict. All in all, Tatour's style has not impressed me as much as, for example, Mohammed El-Kurd's Rifqa. Though I believe there might also be some power lost in the translation to English. But I can't deny that the content of some of Tatour's pieces are gut-wrenching.