Well, there you have it. I spent a long time on this, trying to adhere with honour to what I thought was the original intent. But I'm not sure. For example, I finally decided that 'death' was personified. If I'm way off track, I'm not quite certain what was intended. I did not use capitals for 'Him', although I think that would be more appropriate. To be honest, I believe this version reads very well. The question is: was this the idea intended?

To Souhad I offer my deepest apologies if this work is in any way annoying. I did not see the 'word for word' translation, and so may be more than one 'idea' away from the original. The intent is very powerful. That is what I tried to capture, and keep, as I perceived it.

To visit Souhad's profile: http://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/suhadhijazi.

Suhad is a young Palestinian woman currently living in the UK. She has a PhD in translation studies from Manchester University.

Suhad has offered this poem of hers to allow us to pilot this feature on the website. She wrote it in Arabic then provided her own translation, which I have now amended. to see the original, click on <view history. at the top.
I have to say that I was very nervous about amending the translation, as Suhad's English is excellent - obviously, given that she has successfully completed her PhD. However, the point of this experiment is to encourage participation in translation so that we can create a community, or communities, of poets from across linguistic divides.

So please feel free to make any changes you wish to the translation. You will not be seen as criticising her poem but offering ideas and suggestions to it. We shall not lose the original because you have had a go at amending the translation.
You can ask questions of Suhad or make comments in these boxes.
We also hope you offer us comments on the difficulties and challenges of translating and rendering a new version, or the ideas it gives you for your own work.
Thanks for your help and interest.