Khaled Mattawa currently teaches in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan. He is the author of four books of poetry and a critical study of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Mattawa has coedited two anthologies of Arab American literature and translated many volumes of contemporary Arabic poetry. His awards include the Academy of American Poets Fellowship Prize, the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He is the current editor of Michigan Quarterly Review.
Poetry
July/Aug 2019
Malouk’s Ode
I tap a few words to her on WhatsApp or Viber to blot out the day. I bring my nose close to the screen to smell the photos she sends. […]
Poetry
July/Aug 2019
Moria Refugee Camp Journal
about you a grave yard on this much that — the that you live in — the this much — you live on the all about you a grave a yard or two — the not […]
Poetry
July/Aug 2019
Psalm of the Volunteer
— for the Village of Skala Sikamineas Dear world, who am I to condemn you Dear eyes, who am I to blind you Dear lies, who am I to chastise […]
Poetry
July/Aug 2019
Qassida to the Statue of Sappho in Mytilini
Kyria, why do you stand askance, facing neither sea nor mountain, not even toward your wildflower fields? And the lyre on your shoulder, was it meant to be the size […]
July/Aug 2019
Fuel Burns
Gasoline canisters leak or get knocked over; gasoline mixes with seawater, and when the mixture touches human skin, skin begins to burn. Women sitting in the bottom or the center […]
Poetry
Spring 2007
Buster
We call out to the night sky, the heart's compass falters, beseech the eye to witness us through unmapped days. I know that inside my eye there's a sky swirling. […]
Poetry
Summer 2000
from Echoes & Elixirs
1. It shines through clouds and rain. It dyes the streets with its pink blossoms. The day crawls through its tunnels. The roads are long and long. City without words. […]
Poetry
Spring 1995
To His Father: A Biography
Beyond (and sometimes even within) people’s memories was undated time, historical darkness. Out of that darkness (extending to place as well as time) we had all come. — V. S. Naipaul […]
Poetry
Winter 1993
Watermelon Tales
January. Snow. For days I have craved watermelons, wanted to freckle the ground with seeds, wanted to perform an ancient ritual: Noontime, an early summer Sunday, the village chief faces […]
Poetry
Winter 1993
The Bloomingfoods Promise
For the ugly man who buys bell peppers, eats them raw before talking to himself, for the widow who buys prunes because they’re tender as lips, for the Saudi who […]
Poetry
Winter 1993
Herodotus on a Date
What do you mean I never told you about the Visigoths?They were all jerks. Clovis chased them all the way to Spain, then they became his mercenaries putting down peasant […]
Poetry
Winter 2011
Desert
The cities dissolve, and the earth is a cart loaded with dust Only poetry knows how to pair itself to this space. No road to his house, a siege, and […]
Poetry
Spring 2010
Excerpts from the Body’s Sura
From the Arabic. i. They will have silver circling their wrists. They will have curves and details, and limber muscles. Their loose hair will be drenched on brief evenings with […]
Poetry
Spring 2010
The House after Her Death
From the Arabic. Nothing has changed after my mother’s death. Her portraits are still youthful. My four sisters are still intent on keeping the day tied to its three […]
Poetry
Spring 2010
Lampoon
From the Arabic. Like a broken-hearted falcon, like a toothless storm, I will lean on the edge of the city and block with my back the arrows that friends fling […]
Poetry
Spring 2006
I Scandalize Myself
From the Arabic. I must tell my fatherthat the only man for whom “desire shatters me”looks exactly like him, and tell my friendsthat I have different pictures of myself,all […]
Poetry
Spring 2006
Respecting Marx
From the Arabic. In front of bright storefrontsflourishing with women’s pantiesI cannot stop myselffrom thinking of Marx. Respecting Marxis the only thing all those who loved me sharedand I […]
Poetry
Spring 2006
I Describe a Migraine
From the Arabic. I wanted to describe chronic migrainesas proofthat the chemical operationsin my large brainare working in an orderly fashion.I wanted to begin:My hands are not enough to […]
Poetry
Spring 2000
The Collapse of the Two-Rivers Hotel
From the Arabic. The desert is not far from it and when the date palms sway into its rooms they become dusty like the water of the nearby river and […]
Poetry
Spring 2000
Noontime
From the Arabic. Between desiring and walking together there is a field for hesitation or reflection or boredom Think about it: Can we talk in a restaurant or find a […]
Sept/Oct 2017
On Adonis’s “Concerto Al-Quds”
Read Khaled Mattawa’s translation of Adonis’s “Afflictions” here. The only trip that our poet Adonis took to Al-Quds/Jerusalem was in 1966 at the invitation of a small literary club. By […]
Fall 2014
On the Poet’s Presence: Thinking Back, Thinking Forth, and Thinking Darwish and Tagore
1. I grew up in Eastern Libya, where people’s habits of mind are tied to their vernacular poetry. Like their kin across the border in the Western Desert of Egypt, […]
Fall 2014
Meet the Poet-Stranger: Three Stories and Their Aftermath
1. As a writer starting out in the early 1990s, I wanted the company of fellow immigrants who worked in the language of their adopted homelands, chiseling away at their […]
Fall 2014
Identity, Power, and a Prayer to Our Lady of Repatriation: On Translating and Writing Poetry
I. In December 1988, in my last year in college, I travelled for a week to New York and took Lorca’s Poet in New York with me. I realize the […]
Fall 2012
Libya’s Day of Liberation: One Year On
Tripoli, Oct. 24, 2012: A dispatch from the poet and translator Khaled Mattawa one year after the liberation of Libya. Yesterday was the anniversary of the collapse of the Qaddafi […]
Summer 2012
On Libya’s Recent Elections
On Saturday I voted in Libya’s first free elections in nearly fifty years. It was a great feeling multiplied by the exuberant sense of joy expressed by the people on […]
Khaled Mattawa
Khaled Mattawa currently teaches in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan. He is the author of four books of poetry and a critical study of the […]