Taha Muhammad Ali ( ar, طه محمد علي) (1931 in Saffuriyya,

Galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...

– October 2, 2011 in

Nazareth Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In ...

) was a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

Biography

Taha Muhammad Ali fled to

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

with his family when he was seventeen after their village came under heavy bombardment during the

1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...

. The following year, he returned to Nazareth, where he lived till his death. In the 1950s and 1960s, he sold souvenirs during the day to Christian pilgrims and studied poetry at night. His formal education ended after fourth grade. He was owner of a small souvenir shop near the Church of the Annunciation which he operated with his sons, Muhammad Ali wrote vividly of his childhood in Saffuriyya and the political upheavals he survived.

Publications

A collection of his work in English translation (with facing Arabic), ''So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971–2005,'' translated by

Peter Cole Peter Cole is a MacArthur-winning poet and translator who lives in Jerusalem and New Haven. Cole was born in 1957 in Paterson, New Jersey. He attended Williams College and Hampshire College, and moved to Jerusalem in 1981. He has been called "o ...

, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin, was published by

Copper Canyon Press Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, founded in 1972 specializing exclusively in the publication of poetry. It is located in Port Townsend, Washington. Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both popu ...

in 2006. A British edition of the same book appeared with Bloodaxe Books. German and French translations are underway. He has given numerous readings with Cole in the US and Europe. Muhammad Ali is the subject of a biography published by Yale University Press, ''My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century'' by Adina Hoffman. The Palestinian-Israeli novelist

Anton Shammas Anton Shammas ( ar, أنطون شماس, he, אנטון שמאס; born 1950), is a Palestinian writer, poet and translator of Arabic, Hebrew and English. Biography Anton Shammas was one of six children born to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese ...

has translated a collection of Taha Muhammad Ali's work into Hebrew.

Poetic style

Muhammad Ali's style has been described in the introduction to his English collection as "forceful" and written "in short lines of varying beats with a minimum of fuss and a rich array of images drawn primarily from his village life." In a review of ''So What: New & Selected Poems'', he is described as a "beguiling story-teller who maintains a tone of credibility and lucidity without diluting the mysterious or distressing aspects of his tale...By avoiding commonplace response to everyday experience he has written poems that are fragile and graceful and fresh."

Other

Amer Hlehel Amer may refer to: Places * Amer (river), a river in the Dutch province of North Brabant * Amer, Girona, a municipality in the province of Girona in Catalonia, Spain * Amber, India (also known as Amer, India), former city of Rajasthan state ** Am ...

wrote and performs a monodrama, “Taha”, commemorating Taha Muhammad Ali's life and poetry, and particularly the latter's experience of the

nakba Clickable map of Mandatory Palestine with the depopulated locations during the 1947–1949 Palestine war. The Nakba ( ar, النكبة, translit=an-Nakbah, lit=the "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm"), also known as the Palestinian Ca ...

. The English-language premiere was performed on the 16 of March 2017 at the

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...

in Washington DC.

Jonathan Cook Jonathan Cook (born 1965) is a British writer and a freelance journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, who writes about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He writes a regular column for '' The National'' of Abu Dhabi and Middle East Eye. Bac ...

'An unlikely dramatic hero, poet Taha Muhammad Ali takes the Kennedy Center stage,'

Mondoweiss ''Mondoweiss'' is a news website that began as a general-interest blog written by Philip Weiss on ''The New York Observer'' website. It subsequently developed into a broader collaborative venture after fellow journalist Adam Horowitz joined it ...

13 March 2017.

Published work

* * * * *

Anthologies

References

External links

* Interview with Muhammad Ali, ''The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer'',

* Book Descriptio

* Review of ''So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971–2005'

Biography from the international literature festival berlin
* Review from The Nation http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070219/palattella * Blue Flower Arts page http://www.blueflowerarts.com/tmuhammad.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Muhammad Ali, Taha Palestinian poets Israeli Arabic-language poets 1931 births 2011 deaths 20th-century poets