A Wave in the Sea: Najwan Darwish on “Exhausted on the Cross”
Kareem James Abu-Zeid, left, and Najwan Darwish (photo credit: Veronique Vercheval)
Born in Jerusalem, Najwan Darwish published his first poetry collection in 2000. He has since become one of the foremost contemporary Arab poets, and one of the most powerful poetic voices to emerge from Palestine in the modern era. His first book to appear in English was
Nothing More to Lose (NYRB Poets, 2014), which was listed by NPR as one of the best books of the year. Now, with the publication of his second major collection in English,
my defeated banner.
This poem, âMy Defeated Banner,â is from the fifth section of the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwishâs latest collection,
Exhausted on the Cross, and in its devastating beauty, it represents one of the peak moments of his poetry as well as of the writing of our time. As in all of Darwishâs poetry, this defeated banner presents us with a primordial scene, possibly inserted in the depths of what we persist in calling the human, where the feelings of a particular being, that sudden nostalgia that grips us, that desire, that love, crosses over and merges with the nostalgia, passion, and love of all humanity. We understand then that, from