Mahmoud Darwish R.I.P

On so many occassions I learn of literary figures after they have passed away. I heard of Mahmoud Darwish from the NYT and also some other friends. In some of the obits I read he was described as being larger than life, yes, but also as having had that mantle of carrying the Palestinian fight in verse thrust upon him.

I picked up his book, The Adam of Two Edens, and frankly I can only think in terms of Lorca and Neruda, great poets who are elemental and who can also address great sweeps of history, loss and longing, in whatever form.

Darwish does not disappoint. He has the imagery of a Neruda or a Lorca and he has strong historical sense. He has pervasive desert images, images from his land -- lemon blossoms, cypresses, goats, sand -- and his poems have the blood of longing for one's land coursing through them. These are poems of acute loss, of incomprehension, of coming to terms with loss...

Land, like language is inherited.

Exile is places and times which transform their victims

From The Tragedy of Narcissus The Comedy of Silver