Perennial Tensions

The Israeli army demolished his home village al-Birwa in the Galilee in 1948, and today – standing at his hilltop burial site in Ramallah – as far as the eye can see, Israeli settlements stare back over his shrine and landscape.

Darwish was celebrated after the 1990s for his success in congenially extricating himself from the intricacies of the Palestinian problems. According to many critics, he had been able to conjure lyricism from his own experience to address the universal existential tensions of postmodern times.

Perennial Tensions* is a body of performances that not only celebrate the work and worldwide literary influence of Darwish, but also probe the creation of Mahmoud Darwish as an iconic national and Pan-Arab revolutionary figure and a seminal reference for committed modernist poetry. The assembly of performances in this event examines how Darwish’s legacy has been used, represented, and interpreted among different generations and schools of thought. The point of departure for many of the participating artists focuses on how the patriarchal framing of Darwish and his work has been utilized systematically to marginalise, dismiss, and devalue other forms of poetry and literary work that are distant to the commitment to political engagement.  

Cover: a still from Mahmoud Darwich: As the Land is the Language [English and Arabic] 1997; authors/contributors: Simone Bitton, Elias Sanbar, Mirielle Abramovici, Lise Deramond, Aab American Foundation for Culture and Arts, France 3 cinéma, Point du Jour, Arab Film Distribution.

The title of Perennial Tensions is taken from the book by Khaled Mattawa, Mahmoud Dawish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation (Syracuse University Press, 2014), pp. 1–13.