Scissors

Original by Omama Zaier
Translated, from the Arabic, by Ali Znaidi

She cut a piece of cloth
and named it yesternight.
She cut another piece
and named it tomorrow.
Now she has two pieces of cloth to erase the memory.
She cut the poet’s dream, his tongue, and his fingers.
She cut the umbilical cord, the flowers of the balcony, and the moons of the house next door.

Now she has a man tied to the heel of her shoe with the ropes of lust.

مقصّ

قصّت قماشة
..وسمّتها البارحة
قصّت قماشة أخرى
..وسمّتها غدا
..الآن لديها قطعتا قماش لمسح الذّاكرة
..قصّت حلم الشّاعر، لسانه ، أصابعه
..قصّت حبل السرّة ، أزهار الشّرفة ، أقمار البيت المجاور

 ..الآن لديها رجل مقيّد إلى كعب حذائها بحبال الشّهوة

Omama Zaier is a Tunisian poet. She was born in Sbeïtla in 1983. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Arabic language and literature. She is a founding member of Haraket Nas (Text Movement) and the Writers’ Guild of Tunisia. Her poems have been published in numerous Tunisian and Arabic literary magazines in print and online. She is the author of three poetry collections, The World is a Bundle of Imaginations (2013), Secret Passageways (2017), and Eleven Exercises for the Judgment Day (2020).

Ali Znaidi (b.1977) lives in Redeyef, a mining town in southwest Tunisia. He is the author of several chapbooks, including Experimental Ruminations(Fowlpox Press, 2012), Moon’s Cloth Embroidered with Poems (Origami Poems Project, 2012), Bye, Donna Summer!(Fowlpox Press, 2014), Taste of the Edge (Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2014), Mathemaku x5 (Spacecraft Press, 2015), Austere Lights(Locofo Chaps: an imprint of Moria Books, 2017), Gazes of Wrath(Mount Analogue Press, 2017), and Against Darkness (Pen & Anvil Press, 2018). His translations into English have appeared in The Lifted Brow, InTranslation: a web-exclusive section of The Brooklyn Rail, International Poetry Review, Lunch Ticket, Columbia Journal Online, Samovar Magazine, Exchanges, Long River Review, Barricade: A Journal of Antifascism & Translation, MAYDAY Magazine and elsewhere. For more, visit aliznaidi.blogspot.com or follow him on X (formerly Twitter): @AliZnaidi.

Translator’s Note Omama Zaier draws on her knowledge of Arabic poetry and world literature and mythologies to convey a rich experience. Although her language is simple and straightforward, it is not sterile. The poet attempts to reshape the Tunisian poetry scene and give it freshness and vividness through multi-faceted enquiry into the relationship between poetry and experimentation.

With a poetic voice that is as tantalizingly uncontrolled as it is intellectually sublime, Zaier’s poem brims with audacity, sensuality, music, and cultural references.

I was, and remain, in awe of Omama Zaier’s poems for the depth they exhibit and for their brave themes. Translating this poem was an incredibly illuminating experience, one that transformed my own sensibilities as a poet, translator, and reader.