Live Encounters Arab Women Poets & Writers April 2024.
The Secret, poem by Nehad Zaki.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
The Secret
In my city
No one is greeted
Eyes do not meet
And hands do not touch.
The trial suddenly shrank.
The spheres lost their control over the City of God
The threads broke up
The circles dissolved.
You are trapped in the present moment
You repeat it over and over again
A cat chasing its tail.
The other no longer has a role in the story
You now know that
He would not end the curse of your blood.
Bats nested in the souls next to spiders
They sucked the heart’s blood
Everyone was hit by the infection of walking in the place
Ghosts wandering on an eternal street.
Everyone closes their eyes
Escapes into the bliss of blindness
Afraid of catching feelings.
Here, the secrets die suffocated in the throats
Swords cut tongues before they speak a word.
And under the shadow of the moon
No one whispers secrets in anyone’s ear anymore.
© Nehad Zaki
Nehad Zaki, an Egyptian poet, journalist, and writer, born in December 1987. She won the Buland Al-Haidari Prize for Young Arab Poets in its 2022 session. She practices drawing and is interested in Fine arts, film criticism, philosophy, literature, and other human sciences. In February 2022, her book “As if it were the Resurrection” was published.
Translation by Dr. Salwa Gouda, an Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic at the English Language and Literature Department at Ain-Shams University. She holds a PhD in English literature and criticism. She received her education at Ain-Shams University and California State University in San Bernardino. She has published several academic books, including “Lectures in English Poetry, and “Introduction to Modern Literary Criticism” and others. She has also contributed to the translation of “The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers,” which includes poets and their poetry, philosophers, historians, and men of letters, under the supervision of UNESCO. Additionally, her poetry translations have been published in various international magazines.