Fathieh Saudi
Fathieh Saudi was born in Jordan. She lives in London. Having completed her medical studies in France, she worked as a consultant paediatrician in Jordan and Lebanon; mainly with Palestinian and Lebanese refugees, and disadvantaged children. For more than 30 years she has been working for peace and the defence of human rights in national and international contexts. Fathieh also maintains a keen interest in women’s voices, and in the interfaith movement, dialogue, language and literary translation.
Her published full length poetry collections include: "Prophetic Children Abraham Moses Jesus Mohammed" (with a foreword by John Berger), "Daughter of the Thames" (a semi autobiographical collection drawing on issues of identity, trauma, language and hope), and "Bint Alnaher" in Arabic. She has translated several books from English and French into Arabic, including the novel "From A to X” by John Berger. Her previous other publications include "l'Oubli rebelle", memoirs in French, and "Days of Amber", memoirs in Arabic.
She gave several poetry readings or performances in the United Kingdom, France, Columbia, Jordan, and Morocco...etc.
Fathieh is the recipient of several awards for her social, cultural and humanitarian work, notably the Chevalier de L’Order du Merite, from France.
She lives in London.
Looking for me
My homeland was far away,
my father was dead,
my mother left behind,
my friends were scattered
my loved ones had gone away.
I stopped receiving letters.
My inbox was empty.
My phone fell silent.
The four corners of the world
turned pale.
My body was suddenly ageing.
My mind, emptied of memories,
slammed the door of thought.
The wind alone whispered at my window.
from faraway an alphabet came
shattering the silence
into a necklace of words.
A winged word was looking for me,
I caught sight of it flying just above my head.
Beirut
My childhood taught me the alphabet.
Beirut taught me the language of life,
for her I raise an altar in my heart.
How does a city come to be in pain,
like you and I?
Beirut city of the soul, my body embraces you.
What am I-
observer or witness?
Can I stop consciousness knocking at my heart?
What can we do to stem the flood?
In Beirut I saw the walls of the world
built with bombs, with molten iron.
In Beirut I understood the meaning of life.
I touched the essence of humanity.
Beirut, o remain with me
protect the rhythm of my soul,
for the sake of hope,
of a just world without walls.
Jaikour
On my twentieth birthday, I dreamt
my daughter’s name would be Jaikour.
I imagined her beautiful, graceful
shiny black hair,
a smile that outshone a comet,
a heart that melted pearls.
She would always be generous.
Jaikour, Jaikour.
I never ventured there,
a small village next to the Euphrates,
birthplace of Alsayab, my favourite
poet a long time ago.
In his dreams, between cries of pain,
from his hospital bed in London,
he called incessantly “Jaikour, Jaikour…”
I gave Jaikour a soul.
Today, thirty years later,
though my child is not yet born,
though Jaikour was erased by wars,
I continue to love the mystery of this word.
Jaikour, Jaikour.
Jaikour is the birth place of the Iraqi poet Bader Shaker Alsayab. In his poetry, Jaikour is a symbol of fertility and salvation.
Vertical
To Sylvia Plath
Desperate, I ask the blind to show me
the way. I long to save my life.
She wasn’t my mother
yet she gave me life again.
I contemplate her face,
glimpse her tears, sense her anger.
I reach the space around her,
I grasp the stars of life.
She teaches me
to step towards my river,
walk on water like a seagull,
leap onto a transparent line of life,
build a home from the alphabet,
fly with broken wings.
She teaches me
to cross a bridge at the edge of life,
survive a storm,
yet remain vertical.
Vertical.
Meeting with the king
Tonight, tonight
will it be my last night?
I will be in the arms of the angry king,
he will crush my lungs. An unspoken word
will be my last breath.
Which word will it be,
which word will end my life,
In what language?
Will it be a piercing scream or silent?
Will it be painful?
My steps dragged me to his palace
a westerly wind blew on my face
the palm trees ached with cold.
I saw my death screaming in his eyes
he had already killed me
yet I continued to be alive!
Suddenly a rebel grew inside me:
deadened feelings can’t decide my end,
I would choose my own death.
The king said: what last wish do you utter?
I murmured: a glass of water.
The drops of water turned into a lake
the lake into a river
the river into a sea
I was in a womb again.
With my last sip of water
an unknown voice formed within me
words flowed to my lips like pearls
opening into many shapes.
I had never heard my voice before
my words were tender, whispering
stories from faraway lands:
babies born from a rainbow
wounds healed by a smile
the moon dropping rain
the sun warming midnight,
humans born from water
flying mountains embracing the clouds
grass growing tall to shelter lovers
hearts speaking through time and space.
How many months, years
had passed away? The king’s eyes
remained open. A white feather
has touched his heart.
Tonight I know, the king can’t break my life
tonight is the last of the thousand and one nights
tonight I will leave his palace
tonight my life is mine.
One hundred fingers
Her wings were full of dust. She plummeted
into mother earth.
She held her breath,
scrabbled deep in the rocks
so much to remove, to push away,
digging with her ten fingers,
with her hundred fingers.
Her heart shrank.
The earth’s womb was filled with fire and rock.
No water to quench the blaze.
Her last breath, an eruption of strength,
a tiny space opened between layers of rock,
she forced the tip of one finger through,
found a space to pass, then another and another,
until from the darkness her hand emerged.
Her body felt a fresh
breath coming from a shy sun.
A butterfly moved inside,
another flutter of her wings,
and rocks around crumbled.
She was resurrected
on the earth.
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