WEBVTT

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So I have this new
translation, and maybe

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because it's my sort of newest
work, I'm happiest about it.

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And it's called "Petra:
The Concealed Rose."

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It's a book-long poem about
Petra by the Jordanian poet

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Amjad Nasser.

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And some of you may be
aware of a recent piece

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I had written in
response to sort

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of a natural sort
of ongoing trend

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in the sort of poetic
discourse that we

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have in American poetry that
really doesn't pay attention

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to how much it repeats
the language of power,

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of imperial power.

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And I had-- in that piece
in the Kenyon Review,

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I just suggested, again,
like I have been--

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I guess my hope is--
in some of these poems

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to begin to think of
reading, quote, unquote,

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"reading the Arab"
in a different way

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because we're capable
and it's there.

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It's available.

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And so, this poem, again,
doesn't have any tragedy, war,

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or anything.

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It's a poem, the Arab
writing the Arab.

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And I don't mean
the translation,

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that I am an
Arab-American translating

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the work of an
Arab poet, but it's

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the Arab poet writing about
something Arab, which is Petra.

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I don't think that in Western
literature or consciousness,

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there is this awareness--

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that, you know, we think
Petra belongs to us

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as a tourist attraction.

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And it's a really
interesting book to read.

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And if you ever
visit Petra, this

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is the travel guide you
should carry with you,

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and forget about Lonely Planet.

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So I'm going to read a small
section from the beginning

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and I'm going to jump.

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It's a very varied poem.

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It has a lot of lyrical
moments and then a lot

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of prose narratives.

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So I'm going to read
a lyrical beginning

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and then move to
a prose section.

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We know you're hiding
there behind that rib

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cage of a guard, breathing
with the mountain's lungs

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and watching through the
rocks' sunken secret.

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Comers and goers who are
seduced by descriptive

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talk before silence stamps
its lilac seal on their lips.

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Without compass, we
know where you are.

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We know you're writhing path
like a pain in the waist.

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We have often
visited you, entered

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the labyrinth and cave, bent
this way and leaned another.

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A swift light fell on us as
darkness followed darkness

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in the blink of an eye.

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How many times were we
led by step and yearning

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and dry throat in a
pilgrimage that resembles

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wandering in your parts?

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Whenever we thought we
had reached your limit,

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we found ourselves at the
limbs of your story again.

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No one is exempt from
this when he sees you,

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rubbing his eyes in your patient
morning, you redhead Bedouin.

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All who wrote about Petra
imagined it as female.

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A pagan goddess like the morning
star, a queen in golden chariot

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pulled by four horses,
a young shepherdess

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guiding a herd of goats,
a Bedouin woman weaving

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an endless mat, a queen
daughter of a queen.

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The feminine metaphor is ready
at the tips of their pens,

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just as it was when
I discussed el-Siq--

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that narrow path that
leads to the Treasury--

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Still, others, who desire to be
more contemporary in expressing

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a femininity that is difficult
to pass through with ease,

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wrote about a blonde tourist
who rolls up her pants and wades

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in a captivating mirage.

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Or an archeologist who
impersonates at night

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the images of ancient queens.

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Or a student of
history whose name

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is that of a famous
Arabic lover as she

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guides a team of students like
a gazelle ascending to el-Deir.

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Yet it is possible for
the sensory metaphor

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to flip into a Sufi
ramble within one range.

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The sensory and
the abstract merge.

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How wondrous in ink.

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Sometimes it is difficult
to tell them apart.

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The abstract has a root
hold in the sensory, perhaps

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a drip in the urns of utmost
desire, the impossible desire,

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drop by drop until vanishing.

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I ask myself, why isn't
the masculine present

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when Petra is present?

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Why are womb, tenderness,
fragility, bottlenecks,

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rose, silk, frankincense,
coal, ankle, belly,

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and navel present?

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While sword, spear,
and muscle aren't.

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If Petra were Roman,
there would have

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been no way to avoid the sword,
shield, spear, and helmet.

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This is what
distinguishes Petra.

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Its closeness to Athens,
perhaps more than Rome.

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Yet, Athens worships masculine
beauty, boys' supple muscles,

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the glistening warrior
flesh like the rump

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of a fleeting coat.

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But Petra isn't Greek because
its beauty is feminine,

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and it isn't Bedouin.

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I mean, not the work of nomads
searching for some vegetation

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and a water hole.

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What is Petra then?

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How did this branching rose
sprout in an arid wadi?

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How could such fragile
beauty conceal itself

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behind a scowling
rough mountain?

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Do settled dwellings rise
like that without childhood?

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Where is Petra's childhood?

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The chisels first strike?

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The stumbling gait of the
entrancing young woman?

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This is what we still
don't know with certainty.

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All that was
written about Petra,

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all the chisels that dug
into the layers of sand,

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all the experts of
manuscripts and extinct worlds

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who flocked to it, the old
dictionaries, the probes

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of space stations, all failed
to reach this cocoon that

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hides the secret or the piece
of paper on which a poet claimed

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that this was written.

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Don't seek me in simile, for
all who are like me are not me.

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And all who resemble
me are other than me.

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