Live Encounters Arab Poetry & Writing April 2025
Tears of Women, poems by Maha Alautoom.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Tears of Women
The tears that
The oyster gathered
In its depths
One tear
Two tears
Three
Became a pearl
And the women who wore tears
Danced in the dance floor
The light of the oyster inflamed
Their bodies
And the sorrow of the oyster sobbed
Over the fingers
They listen to the wave within them
Sometimes a sea flows from the living body
And sometimes the women return to the sea:
When they return
As they were:
Water
And salt
And light
And sorrow
To gather their blueness
And the distant oyster sheds them
And at night,
At the end of the night
They hide their precious tears
In boxes of dreams
They open the door of sleep to a new sea…
…
The oyster
Is the happy past
Of women.
A poetess passed through here
I knew
And I know that path
Where I got lost
And I still walk it and lose my way
I pass through it at night
Alone
I forget the bullets that
Pierced sleep
I forget the winter
That turns lovers
Into prophets or poets
And I remember only the letters of the alphabet.
I will draw a line pointing to the house
My house is speech
In which I lived like its trees
I entertain myself and rise
And the noon sun drowsed within it
And I slept on its doorstep
Like a swing
My house will become my speech
And it will empty when I die
And strangers will inhabit it.
I will draw two lines
Between which life passes
Like a river
A thin thread of water
In which I gather pebbles
And it becomes a path
For a poetess who passed through here:
The pebbles are my footsteps
And those lines on the water
What remains of me
And of my words.
© Maha Alautoom
Translated from Arabic by Dr Salwa Gouda. She 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.
Maha Alautoom is a poet and academic, holding a PhD in Arabic Literature and Modern Criticism. She is a member of the Jordanian Writers Association and has authored several poetic works, including Circles of Mud (1999), Half of It is Lilac (2006), More like Her Dreams (2010), Down the River (2013), and Upper Rooms (2019). In recognition of her contributions, she was honored with the Jordanian State Appreciation Award in 2017.