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POETRY AGAINST OCCUPATION
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THEN WE DIDN'T YET KNOW by Dalia Falah
Translated to English by Rachel Tzvia Back, to Norwegian by Marius Kolbenstvedt
Read by Selma Joner
Then we didn’t yet know
that the Occupation would be forever.
Even when it would be forcibly extracted like a tooth
and tossed behind electric fences
and magnetic crossings
while cement and petrol magnates
traveled from Ramallah to Gaza –
even then it would be remembered longingly –
how young it was, the Occupation,
composed only of Arab women bent over tomatoes
in Jewish fields, men with nylon bags
waiting forwork at the Ashkelon junction,
jumping into grey service Peugeots,
and the Secret Service men who lived three to a villa in Afridar
actually changing their license plates before
going off to work, so they wouldn’t be identified.
It was young. In the restaurants they peeled vegetables into large tins, then
fried them, built on scaffolds. There were many organizations.
And they too were young:
volunteers with Chinese weapons, poets,
but the Occupation did not recognize them,
because it was busy arguing in the classrooms wether to return territories or not,
and Ofer P., whose father was wounded in the Battle of Jenin,
and had shrapnel stuck in his back
said: ”In any case there’ll be another war.”
Thats what his father taught him.
That’s how young the Occupation was,
and look at it now.
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LANGUAGE by Nathan Zach
Translated to English by Rachel Tzvia Back, to Norwegian by Terje Nordby
Read by Thomas Hildebrand
Confirming a kill - A bullet to the head
Exposing the enemy - Uprooting olive groves
Collateral Damage - Every neighbor’s life imperiled
Encirclement - A city under siege
Closure - Jailing civilians in their homes
Targeted Eliminations - Killing the good with the bad
Administrative Detention - Imprisonment without trial
Bargaining Chips - Toying with human life
Roadblocks - Breaking a people’s spirit
Delimiting Village Expansion - Banishing a man to the wilderness
Family Unification Plan - Separating husbands from their wives
Trial - Distinguishing between blood and blood
Emigration Directorate - Arresting men in their sleep
Human Resource Company - Robbing the foreigner of his livelihood
Urban Development - Building new prisons
Settlement Outposts - Deluding the world
An Isolationist Nation - Sonic bombs over neighboring countries
Geneva Accords - The murder of a seven-year-old boy
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A MOTHER IS WALKING AROUND by Dahlia Ravikovitch
Translated to English by Rachel Tzvia Back, to Norwegian by Marius Kolbenstvedt
Read by Henning Farner
A mother is walking around with a dead child in her belly.
This child hasn’t been born yet.
On the day of his birth, the dead child will be born
head first, then back and buttocks
and he won’t wave his arms about
or cry his first cry
and they won’t tap his bottom
or put drops in his eyes
and they won’t swaddle him
after washing his body.
He’ll be nothing like a living child.
And his mother won’t be calm and proud after giving birth
she also won’t be worried about his future,
she won’t ask herself how will she support him
and does she have enough milk
and enough clothes
and how will she fit another cradle into the room.
The child is wholly righteous,
unmade ere he was ever made.
And he’ll have his own little grave at the edge of the cemetery
and a little memorial day
and very little to remember him by.
This is the history of the child
who was killed in his mother’s belly
in the month of January 1988
for reasons relating to national security.
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THE TARGET by Tal Nizan
Translated to English by Tal Nizan and Vivian Eden, to Norwegian by Marius Kolbenstvedt
Read by Liv Aakvik
They closed their non-aiming eye
and watched the target
and chose an aiming point
and brought the edge of the blade
to the notch of the rear sight
with all the gunsights upright
and leaving a white thread
they fired.
But missed.
They did manage to kill Muhammad El-Hayk, 24,
And severly wound his father Abdalla, 64,
all “as necessary and according to procedures,”
but missed Maisun El-Hayk, only slightly wounding her
in spite of her big belly
that happened to be a perfect aiming point
(but hadn’t they made her undress at the roadblock before
to ensure the belly was a belly indeed
and the labor pains-labor pains
before it occurred to them
to proceed with
suspect arrest-procedure”?)
and also failed to hit
her fetus daughter
and send her to heaven
before she came into this world
-must have overlooked that white thread-
but did manage to inseparably seam
her birth day to her father’s burial day
and reinforce the promise
“In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children”
- there has been no greater sorrow!-
as the shooting ceased
and Maisun called out for Muhammad
and the terror or the excruciating pain
twisted her voice
(“Breathe slowly and deeply
find the most comfortable position,
think of something nice and pleasant,
ask your partner to dim the lights,
play your favourite music,
gently massage your lower back”)
and he, suddenly, stopped answering,
for if you haven’t seen Maisun’s photo,
her hands quivering over her daughter,
pink, calm , innocent
the way newborn babies are
-but wasn’t she lucky
to have given birth to her in a hospital bed
rather than crouching like her sisters before her
like an animal in front of the soldiers
and then stumbling ten kilometres,
walking and bleeding,
carrying the dead infant as an offering-
whoever hasn’t opened a non-aiming eye
to look into Maisun el-Hayk’s face,
has never seen what it means
to bring forth children in sorrow.
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IN ENEMY TERRITORY by Maxim Ghilan
Translated to English by Rachel Tzvia Back, to Norwegian by Marius Kolbenstvedt
Read by Thomas Hildebrand
From enemy territory i am writing
coded messages, writing as though
to the resistance. Like a hostage held
in a sombre city, loving the enemy.
I write here and they say sit there –
I write there and they say soon –
ripping up the words, and not just them,
setting lyrics to a graceless tune.
I write in sorrow. Sometimes hatred
descends on my palate as at a feast of riches
a stew of revenge and reverence
before what might have been here, once.
I write also in happiness, but not gloating.
I write with precision, I write as a witness.
Not part of the fair. Representative exhibit.
Present-absentee. Most unfashionably.
But also as a returnee,
Looking hard all around
With vain hope I see
The enemy everywhere. Even in me.
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TO MAXIM GILAN by Uri Weiss
Translated to English by Dena Shunra, to Norwegian by Marius Kolbenstvedt
Read by Marius Kolbenstvedt
Cry out, Maxim.
This no time to be dead. Occupation's
Walls still weigh down
The necks of children. A man
Born when you left will be oppressed
Without you even once raising your voice to protest.
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DOWN IN STRAWBERRY FIELDS by Uri Weiss
Translated to English by Dena Shunra, to Norwegian by Marius Kolbenstvedt
Read by Marius Kolbenstvedt
When thirteen year-old Issa reaches his
Hands down
He looks as though he had his
Hands up.
If a picture had been given in pieces,
The leg would be standing. But
Since the whole picture is given
We can see that Issa is not whole
After the occupation army
Took him down
In Strawberry Fields.