{"id":172985,"date":"2026-02-24T10:42:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=172985"},"modified":"2026-02-24T10:43:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:43:50","slug":"making-of-a-poem-monzer-masri-robyn-creswell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/02\/24\/making-of-a-poem-monzer-masri-robyn-creswell\/","title":{"rendered":"Making of a Poem: Monzer Masri and Robyn Creswell on \u201cA Palestinian, a Sudanese, and the third was a Moroccan\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Images courtesy of Monzer Masri.<\/p><\/div>\n

For our series Making of a Poem, we\u2019re asking poets and translators to dissect the poems they’ve contributed to our pages. Monzer Masri\u2019s poem \u201cA Palestinian, a Sudanese, and the third was a Moroccan<\/a><\/em>,<\/a>\u201d translated from the Arabic by Robyn Creswell, appears in our new Winter issue, no. 254. Here, we asked both Masri and Creswell to reflect on their work.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

1. Monzer Masri<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you have photographs of different drafts of this poem?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I don\u2019t usually get rid of early versions of poems or book manuscripts. I keep them all, even now, in clear plastic envelopes, though they aren\u2019t organized by date or by subject. The problem is that whenever I go back to them, which I do from time to time, I invariably add to the chaos\u2014so much so that I despair of ever getting them in order. Which is why it took me a few hours to find the oldest version I still have of \u201cA Palestinian, A Sudanese, and the third was a Moroccan,\u201d dated June 3, 1977. That exactly matches the date of the manuscript\u2014in the image below, it\u2019s the notebook with the red cover\u2014for Bashar wa tawarikh wa amkina<\/span><\/i><\/em> (<\/span>People, dates, and places<\/span>), which was<\/span>\u00a0published by the Syrian Ministry of Culture at the end of 1979.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How did this poem start for you? Was it with an image, an idea, a phrase, or something else?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wrote the poem around six years after graduating with a degree in Economics from Aleppo University and saying goodbye to those three friends, Nu\u2018man Kanafani, Omar Abd al-Salam, and Abdel al-Latif Awad. Six years without a letter or piece of news from any of them! This could be one reason I wrote the poem\u2014to renew my memory of people whom I missed very much. But it was also the result of my feverish desire, at the time, to write poetry. That was a big part of it, my desire to write poetry that was very different from the kind of poetry, Syrian or Western, being written at the time. The title of poem indicates as much, as did the title of the collection. <\/em>I remember the man in charge of selling books at Latakia\u2019s Cultural Center said to me at the time that many people assumed my book had something to do with geography. Writing poems about friends was something I did a lot. In the book, there\u2019s another poem that\u2019s also about three friends of mine\u2014\u201cMuhammad, Ibrahim, and Mustafa\u201d!<\/p>\n

What were you listening to, reading, or watching while you were writing this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m seventy-five years old and have always had music in my ears. I remember once listening to a song of Elvis Presley\u2014I couldn\u2019t have been more than sixteen\u2014and one of my mother\u2019s friends asking me if I understood anything he said. When I gave her the best translation I could manage, this woman, who was also a poet, turned to my mother and said, \u201cMonzer is interested in words and meanings. I\u2019m interested in melodies and music.\u201d<\/p>\n

I love all kinds of music\u2014pop, folk, soul, blues, jazz. I could name a hundred musicians\u2014American, British, Irish, Canadian\u2014who are on my list of favorites. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Tim Hardin, Peter Green, Cat Stevens, Carole King, and on and on. I learned so much from them. Same with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin. That\u2019s not counting all the jazz musicians and instrumentalists who give my life its soundtrack.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m buried, I\u2019d like them to put an MP3 player in the grave with me, hooked up to my headphones. Then I could listen to music while I\u2019m dead, as long as the lithium battery keeps working!<\/p>\n

How did writing the first draft feel to you? Did it come easily, or was it difficult to write? Are there hard and easy poems?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Long poems are definitely harder than short ones! Which doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re better or more important\u2014and certainly not more beautiful. I don\u2019t remember that \u201cA Palestinian, a Sudanese, and the third was a Moroccan\u201d\u2014a medium-length poem\u2014was difficult to write, despite all the facts and ideas and feelings stuffed in it. That\u2019s the kind of poem I like to write and to read, a poem that tells you about things and events, big or small, that really happened, then builds the significance of the poem on that basis. It\u2019s like what T. S. Eliot says\u2014the river is a strong brown god who deserves to be worshipped, even if it\u2019s also, unfortunately, \u201ca conveyer of commerce.\u201d Or it\u2019s like when Robert Frost asks the builder not to build his kitchen chimney on a shelf, since no house like that thrives.<\/p>\n

How about the second draft? The third? How many drafts were there and what were the primary differences between them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, there are two words that differ between the first draft and the final version of the poem, the version published in three of my collections.<\/p>\n

The first word, in Arabic, is al-mumisat\u2014<\/em>in English, \u201cprostitutes,\u201d or \u201cladies of the night.” That\u2019s the word I used in the first draft of the poem, from June 3, 1977, which is also the word that appears in the manuscript and the first edition of the book itself. In two later collections, I changed the word to al-sadiqat<\/em>\u2014in English, you might say girlfriends<\/em>\u2014which seemed to me to have a more affectionate connotation. It was also a more accurate word, given the life we were living, than al-mumisat<\/em>. Not that we didn\u2019t have any of that sort of thing, but there was very little. Girlfriends were what the three of us shared\u2014although that\u2019s easier said than done! In retrospect, I\u2019m a bit surprised the Ministry of Culture would publish a book whose author says he shared prostitutes with his pals. I think my friend and translator Robyn\u2019s English choice, girls<\/em>, slices through the knot very cleanly.<\/p>\n

The second word, which comes in the second-to-last line of the poem, is ka\u2019anna-hu <\/em>(\u201cas if <\/em>as they say\u201d), which is what appears in the first draft of the poem, then becomes li\u2019anna-hu<\/em>: \u201csince<\/em> as they say\u201d). Since<\/em> is the word I settled on for all the published versions. There\u2019s obviously a big difference between as if <\/em>and since<\/em>, and now I prefer the first. Why should I want to be so cruel, so harsh? I would certainly insist that Palestinians today \u201chave no homeland\u201d! And yet I added the phrase as they say<\/em>, as if I were distancing myself from that conclusion. Look at the note I wrote at the lower right corner on the last page of the poem, in its published version. There, I recorded in parentheses a phrase of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who said in the journal al-\u2018Arab<\/em>, \u201cWe have no country and no exile.\u201d \u00a0He denies not only that the Palestinian has a country, but even that he has an exile! In citing this phrase, was I looking for evidence that would absolve me of what I say in the poem?<\/p>\n

So you see how important one word can be, though a reader might easily skim over it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Where did you write this poem? Can you share photos of your workspace, or workspaces?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1976 I was living with my brother Maher in a single room in our family home. There were two beds with iron frames, a clothes chest with three drawers, and some bookshelves not yet filled with my books. There was also a sound system, for the records that we brought back with us from Beirut. I don\u2019t think I have photos of that room. This is also when I began my work at the directorate of planning in Latakia, where I worked for thirty-five years, until reaching the age of retirement. Photos were less common in those days. But here is a photo of my current workspace.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How did you come up with the title for this poem? <\/strong><\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve said, people didn\u2019t find my early titles \u201cpoetic\u201d in any familiar way. I was known as a poet whose titles were weird, not to say perverse. The title of one collection, Al-Shay laysa bati\u2019an<\/em> (Tea isn\u2019t slow), is considered my weirdest. What does tea have to do with slowness or speed, people asked? I answer that question on the first page of my book. \u201cTea isn\u2019t slow, it\u2019s we who are fast.\u201d As for the title of my latest collection\u2014how\u2019s this for a happy coincidence?\u2014my publisher Riad El Rayyes just informed me today, while I was writing out these responses to these questions, that the title will be Yahsubuni al-dukhan nafidha <\/em>(Smoke considers me a window). The original title, rejected by the publisher, was Nadam al-\u2018andalib <\/em>(The nightingale\u2019s regret). People will say, \u201cThe new title is prettier,\u201d to which I say, \u201cThat\u2019s the problem. I don\u2019t want it to be pretty. I want it to be \u2026\u201d Actually, I don\u2019t know what I want it to be. What I know is that I don\u2019t want it to be poetic. The time has passed when my poetry was poetic\u2014if in fact my poetry was ever <\/em>poetic. My fate has always been to do something different.<\/p>\n

What was the challenge of this particular poem?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To write a universal poem about particular people. To prove to yourself\u2014and to everyone else\u2014that you have within you a source or a river of poetry, which you want to bring forth to irrigate the earth, the trees, everyone.<\/p>\n

Do you regret any revisions?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely not! As Leonard Cohen says, more or less, When they said ‘Regret, regret, regret,’ I didn\u2019t know what they meant.<\/p>\n

When did you know this poem was finished? <\/strong><\/p>\n

For me, a poem is done when there\u2019s no way for me to write it better. There are so many possibilities\u2014but then it\u2019s up to you, with whatever sense of taste, abilities, and experience you have, to figure out what\u2019s best. It does happen that I add entire stanzas to poems years after I\u2019ve published them! In the case of \u201cA Palestinian, a Sudanese, and the third was a Moroccan,\u201d I do consider it a finished as a piece of writing, but unfinished in the sense that it can always be read again, and read differently. That will be true as long as someone else, anyone else, might come along and pick it up. Which does sometimes happen, and I hope will keep happening!<\/p>\n

What I want to point out is that Robyn chose to translate a poem written fifty years ago by a distant and defenseless poet, a poet living in a country whose catastrophes have begun but not yet ended, and in a town known only to its inhabitants! That it should be published in The Paris Review<\/em>, where so many great poets and writers have appeared, is a truly strange and also wonderful thing. I do cherish this poem and yet I didn\u2019t include this poem in my selected volume, Li\u2019anni lastu shakhsan akhir<\/em> (Because I\u2019m not someone else), nor do I typically recite it during my poetry readings in Syria or abroad\u2014which have, admittedly, been very few, considering my advanced age and years of devoted service to the Association of Unknown Poets!<\/p>\n

2. Robyn Creswell<\/strong><\/p>\n

How did translating the first draft feel to you? Did it come easily, or was it difficult? (Are there hard and easy translations?) <\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a question we don\u2019t ask enough\u2014what\u2019s the distinctive feeling<\/em> of working at translation? I don\u2019t think hard and easy stake out the poles of possibility. My own feeling is some combination of readerly absorption, the pleasure (and frustration) of puzzle-solving, the excitement of making something new. With Monzer\u2019s poem, there was also a social element to the experience. I hadn\u2019t met Monzer before beginning this translation and my sense, while working, was that I was coming to know him somehow. I think that\u2019s because of the sort of poem he writes\u2014they\u2019re very hospitable, and remind me of James Merrill in that way. Monzer\u2019s poems take you by the hand and show you around his world. (Some of my favorites are a suite of lyrics called \u201cPoems from my room.\u201d) So my feelings while translating this poem were those of curiosity, attentiveness, surprise, and\u2014when the puzzle pieces clicked together\u2014the satisfaction of holding up my end of the conversation.<\/p>\n

When did you know this translation was finished? Were you right about that? Is it finished after all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In practical terms, when I can read a translation out loud to myself three times in a row without making any changes, it\u2019s done. More generally, no translation is ever finished. There are definitive critical editions, there may even be definitive biographies, but there are no definitive translations. If I were to translate this poem again in five years and it came out the same way, that would only mean I\u2019d learned nothing in the meantime.<\/p>\n

Did you show your drafts to other writers or friends or confidantes? If so, what did they say?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I shared it with my friend and colleague Daniel Behar, who introduced me to Monzer\u2019s work. Daniel has written the best book<\/a> there is on modern Syrian poetry, and he has a great ear for what makes Monzer\u2019s writing unique. I also showed it to Monzer, who made helpful suggestions without insisting on any of them\u2014the ideal author for a translator!<\/p>\n

In my initial version, the Moroccan friend is teasingly called a \u201cBerber\u201d by his pals. In Arabic, the word barbari <\/em>is ambiguous between barbarian <\/em>and the ethnic term Berber<\/em> (the Arabic word is derived from the Greek barbaros<\/em>). The force and playfulness of the insult is a little obscure in English\u2014ethnic name-calling in one language never neatly matches up with that of another\u2014but Monzer suggested Berberian<\/em>, which I thought was brilliant.<\/p>\n

What was the challenge of this particular translation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What I so admire about Monzer\u2019s poetry is its casual precision, the way his stanzas unfurl like complicated thoughts being improvised out loud. They\u2019re full of small but significant qualifications\u2014for instance, in the first stanza, \u201cexcept our political opinions\u201d\u2014occasional backpedaling, surprising emphases, and even more surprising turns. The syntax of his sentences is marvelously flexible\u2014the whole thing made of joints, yet seemingly smooth. Conveying that sinuosity in English, an uninflected language, is tricky. At first, I found myself making each line into a clause, which helped me keep track of how thoughts develop in the original. But it also meant that my lines felt stacked up, instead of freely flowing from one to the next. A lot of my revisions involved moving line breaks, making sure they weren\u2019t too neatly cued up with the grammar. Removing punctuation marks also helped, for example in the sentence that begins, \u201cAs for Nu\u2018man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you regret any revisions?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not yet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Monzer Masri is a Syrian poet. His fourteen collections in the Arabic include <\/em>Bashar wa tawarikh wa amkina (People, dates, and places).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Robyn Creswell\u2019s most recent translation is Iman Mersal\u2019s <\/em>The Threshold.\u00a0He is a professor of comparative literature at Yale.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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