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Barely There: Short Poems
The flashy poets and the poets with a schtick get the big audience, but it is the quiet poets whose individual poems more often linger with me. I'd trade all of Ginsberg, say, for William Bronk's six-line poem "After Bach," which derives from the cello suites the lesson that sadness "can be in part /to accept the absence of One to say it to." And it is Bronk whose work is called to mind for me by Yahia Lababidi's Barely There, in which "in embracing, we let go."' -- H. L. Hix, Author of First Fire, Then Birds
- GenresPoetry
86 pages, ebook
First published August 23, 2013
5 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Yahia Lababidi
22 books104 followersYahia Lababidi is an acclaimed Arab-American writer of Palestinian heritage, author of more than a dozen books of aphorisms, poetry, essays, and conversations. His work unites Eastern mysticism, Western philosophy, and Arab heritage to explore life’s enduring questions: love, faith, suffering, and self-discovery.
His newest books are On the Contrary: Wilde & Nietzsche (Fomite Shorts, 2025), a meditation on two contrarians who turned life into art and thought into moral adventure, and What Remains to Be Said (Wild Goose Publications, 2025), a career-spanning collection of aphorisms written over three decades. Philosophical yet poetic, these reflections offer clarity and consolation in a time of noise, conflict, and distraction.
Lababidi’s Palestine Wail (Daraja Press, 2024) is a love letter to Gaza, praised by Naomi Shihab Nye and translated into seven languages. His poems for Palestine have been read at literary festivals across the world and shared in classrooms and vigils alike.
Earlier works include Quarantine Notes (Fomite Press, 2023), written during the global pandemic; Desert Songs (Rowayat, 2022); Learning to Pray: A Book of Longing (Kelsay Books, 2021); and Revolutions of the Heart (Wipf & Stock, 2020). His acclaimed aphorism collections Signposts to Elsewhere and Where Epics Fail were endorsed by President Obama’s inaugural poet, Richard Blanco, who called Lababidi “the current-day master of the aphorism.”
His writing has appeared on PBS NewsHour, NPR, ABC Radio, On Being with Krista Tippett, Best American Poetry, The Guardian, and World Literature Today. A five-time Pushcart nominee, Lababidi has spoken at Oxford University and served as a juror for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant.
His newest books are On the Contrary: Wilde & Nietzsche (Fomite Shorts, 2025), a meditation on two contrarians who turned life into art and thought into moral adventure, and What Remains to Be Said (Wild Goose Publications, 2025), a career-spanning collection of aphorisms written over three decades. Philosophical yet poetic, these reflections offer clarity and consolation in a time of noise, conflict, and distraction.
Lababidi’s Palestine Wail (Daraja Press, 2024) is a love letter to Gaza, praised by Naomi Shihab Nye and translated into seven languages. His poems for Palestine have been read at literary festivals across the world and shared in classrooms and vigils alike.
Earlier works include Quarantine Notes (Fomite Press, 2023), written during the global pandemic; Desert Songs (Rowayat, 2022); Learning to Pray: A Book of Longing (Kelsay Books, 2021); and Revolutions of the Heart (Wipf & Stock, 2020). His acclaimed aphorism collections Signposts to Elsewhere and Where Epics Fail were endorsed by President Obama’s inaugural poet, Richard Blanco, who called Lababidi “the current-day master of the aphorism.”
His writing has appeared on PBS NewsHour, NPR, ABC Radio, On Being with Krista Tippett, Best American Poetry, The Guardian, and World Literature Today. A five-time Pushcart nominee, Lababidi has spoken at Oxford University and served as a juror for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 24, 2023
Mr. Lababidi is both an idealist and an intellectual. His aphorisms drive that point home. One critic describes him as such: "I find myself pausing everywhere among these wisdoms, wondering why the world stumbles and staggers through such a dark and greedy time when there are people alive with such keen, caring insight. . .If Yahia Samir Lababidi were in charge of a country, I would want to live there." I don't believe I would take it that far. The world we presently live in has outlawed idealists and intellectuals.
No intellectual or idealist leader would engage a nation in a foreign war when that nation is not under direct threat. Nor would said leader allocate billions of dollars abroad to fund such a war. The war in Ukraine with Russia comes to mind. Both Putin and Zelinsky are modern day czars. Poverty, homelessness, crime would, it seems to me, appeal to this intellectual leader first and foremost to combat.
But I digress. Find below examples of Mr. Lababidi's aphorism:
EXCHANGES
What unexpected turns our losses to take
in winding their way back into our arms:
an absent lover returns as many others,
a nation forsaken in the shape of a new life;
poems might take the place of parents
and friends gone come back as a wife.
If love were not always a step ahead
how would it ensure we kept up the chase?
ST SEBASTIAN
Sometimes, he found it difficult
to dislodge the arrows
preferring to keep them alive there
reverberating in silence
along with his invisible wounds.
THE OPPOSITE OF VIRTUE
One might say, a vice is a vise
never mind if metal or moral,
it's basically the same device
with cunning moveable jaws
designed to fix us in place
and cheat us of a change at grace
Impervious to all advice, habit
hotly whispers false reassurance
with tightening is iron grip
It takes no effort to slip into vice,
but virtue is trickier to stick to
like the back of a bucking bronco.
No intellectual or idealist leader would engage a nation in a foreign war when that nation is not under direct threat. Nor would said leader allocate billions of dollars abroad to fund such a war. The war in Ukraine with Russia comes to mind. Both Putin and Zelinsky are modern day czars. Poverty, homelessness, crime would, it seems to me, appeal to this intellectual leader first and foremost to combat.
But I digress. Find below examples of Mr. Lababidi's aphorism:
EXCHANGES
What unexpected turns our losses to take
in winding their way back into our arms:
an absent lover returns as many others,
a nation forsaken in the shape of a new life;
poems might take the place of parents
and friends gone come back as a wife.
If love were not always a step ahead
how would it ensure we kept up the chase?
ST SEBASTIAN
Sometimes, he found it difficult
to dislodge the arrows
preferring to keep them alive there
reverberating in silence
along with his invisible wounds.
THE OPPOSITE OF VIRTUE
One might say, a vice is a vise
never mind if metal or moral,
it's basically the same device
with cunning moveable jaws
designed to fix us in place
and cheat us of a change at grace
Impervious to all advice, habit
hotly whispers false reassurance
with tightening is iron grip
It takes no effort to slip into vice,
but virtue is trickier to stick to
like the back of a bucking bronco.
Want to read
December 5, 2013Master aphorist Yahia Lababidi brings his acute observations on the human condition to poetry. This book is a must for fans of Rumi, Hafiz or Gibran.
August 25, 2025
"Gaze
A loving gaze is
sun, water and soil
for a soul to grow."
A loving gaze is
sun, water and soil
for a soul to grow."
September 21, 2013
The poems of Mr. Lababidi ( Poet. Aphorist. Seeker ) take us back to pure poetry with their imagery, metaphors and deep sensations. We read about "the difficult doors of opportunity" which "suddenly yield at the key"; and "the intricate network of noise ". The feelings in the poems are superb. sensed more and more on re-reading.
A wonderful book of poetry...
A wonderful book of poetry...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews