Rereading Identity Cards: The Early Anticolonial Poetics of Mahmoud Darwish and their Hebrew Afterlives

• Main Author: Silverman, Netanel Haim
• Other Authors: Fox, Harry, Miller, Jeannie, Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Arabic Literature; Hebrew Literature; Israel; Mahmoud Darwish; Palestine; Translation; 0401; sami
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/97647

Abstract In 1964, Mahmoud Darwish, the late national Palestinian poet, published his canonical poem "Identity Card". The poem, constructing an essentialized Arab identity, has since enjoyed a prolific afterlife in both modern Arabic poetry, and Israeli literary discourse. Although it had become an instant 'hit' with Arab crowds, Darwish himself disavowed it at a later stage, refusing to read it for its essentialist perception of identity. Widely reviewed by scholars, the poem has still been scarcely read in its original context, as the closing poem of Darwish's first ever published collection, Olive Leaves (1964). Unlike the essentialist poetics of "Identity Card", the reading of the Olive Leaves poems reveals a complex poetic subjectivity embedded in a network of intertextual references. These in turn engage in a vital dialogue with the anti-colonial moment and poetic innovations prevailing in modern Arabic poetics from the 1950's and on. Through the rereading of the collection's poems and the exploration of Darwish's own theory of poetics, I venture to re-accord these early poetics their deserved place within modern Arabic poetry, echoing Darwish's own assertion that Palestinian poetry, "is neither rival nor an alternative to modern Arabic poetry, it is an integral part of it, a creek within the creeks of the great river". The dissertation then proceeds to explore the Hebrew afterlife of "Identity Card", focusing on two realms: Translation and Mizrahi poetry. Through various public debates and several of the poem's mistranslations, I explore the difficulties of 'digesting' the poem and the manner in which Darwish's presence evokes an ambivalent sense of anxiety, forcing Hebrew culture to face its haunting colonial past and presence. For Mizrahi poetics, on the other hand, Darwish offers a powerful model of self-assertion, opening up a new poetic space where a Mizrahi poetics of deconstruction takes place. This new space is mainly explored through the close reading of Sami Shalom-Chetrit's poem: "A Mural With no Wall: A Qasida for Mahmoud Darwish". Ph.D.