Live Encounters Arab Women Poets & Writers June 2025
Eve, poems by Hawaa Al-Qamudi.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Eve
(In Praise of Farewell)
Grant me time to bid you farewell,
like Adam and Eve
at their first meeting
naked, groping each other.
I count your fingers and touch them with my lips,
I taste the coffee’s bitterness,
and I swoon when I feel
the rebellion of your shoulder blades on your back.
What does your mole tell me
when my lips play a scorching longing,
and when my hands coil around your trunk?
Grant me a moment
to kneel before you,
drench me in the milk of your desire,
so I may pray like a sorrowful goddess
whose time of fertility has passed.
I wash your feet
with these tears
the milk of a strange soul
that has lost you.
Time to bid you farewell,
so I may understand
why I was cast out of Paradise…
In Praise of Absence
Oh Lord,
It is love
the key to the soul,
the elixir of the heart,
the body’s whinny.
Death
is when your fingers
no longer speak to me,
when your kiss is cold,
just a bite of the lip,
when your heart no longer feels my breast,
and your chest has no room for my joy.
And when my fear crumbles
between your arms,
it finds you heedless of my moans.
I am no angel
I am just that girl
who loves you,
who names night and day
after you,
who calls out to the sea
by your name.
She understands your soul,
loves your scent,
licks the sweat of your fear.
But exhaustion
has gnawed at her heart,
the roads
have bitten her feet,
and she fears she won’t find you.
© Hawaa Al-Qamudi
Dr Salwa Gouda is an accomplished Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic affiliated with the English Language and Literature Department at Ain Shams University. Holding a PhD in English literature and criticism, Dr. Gouda pursued her education at both Ain Shams University and California State University, San Bernardino. She has authored several academic works, including Lectures in English Poetry and Introduction to Modern Literary Criticism, among others. Dr. Gouda also played a significant role in translating The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers, a comprehensive project featuring poets, philosophers, historians, and literary figures, conducted under the auspices of UNESCO. Recently, her poetry translations have been featured in a poetry anthology published by Alien Buddha Press in Arizona, USA. Her work has also appeared in numerous international literary magazines, further solidifying her contributions to the field of literary translation and criticism.
Hawaa Al-Qamudi is a Libyan poet who has published three poetry collections.