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August 2018

by Widad Ben Moussa, translated from the Arabic by Bacem A. Essam   GRATITUDE You are as subtle as water, On wiping off my flesh the spatter Of the very pain register. عرفان لك رقة الماء وانت تمحو عن جسدى سيرة الألم   SPRING Your thirst: do you remember it? There, only me could get it slaked نبع عطشك هل تذكره؟ لم يكن يحلو له غير نبعى   CONTRADICTION Love would be tight Were it ever compared To my ineffable sentiment تضاد الحب ضيق جدا أمام شساعة عواطفى   DROWNING Into love, I deeply  swim Outward, I then climb; Chanting  in your name. غريقة أغوص عميقا فى الحب أصعد إلى السطح شادية باسمك   FLIGHT I do NOT possess a wing to fly, But I have, here, enough joy Thereby I can flap up high. تحليق لا أملك الجناح

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Poetry
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by Marilyn Hacker, Translated from the English by Rana Issa and Suneela Mubayi In her 1986 collection Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons,* American poet and translator Marilyn Hacker writes what could be described as a novel-in-verse, telling a first-person story about falling head over heels in love with Rachel, in a breathless romance that throttles through its own track towards heartbreak while the poet’s daily life continues to press and prod on. A child in tow, a teaching job, and life’s other mundane routines clash with the tempo of the exploding romance that takes her to France, to produce a

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Poetry, Translations
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by Yuri Herrera, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman The bottle of juice began vibrating like a telephone. I brought it to my ear and heard nothing, then came a riiing riiing, tho more like a deep gravelly ruhhhn ruhhhn, as the bottle vibrated. I unscrewed it and brought it to my ear and heard someone say: “The pot, uncover the soup pot.” And the call dropped. I hung up, or rather, screwed back on, and put the juice back in the refrigerator. “Who was it?” she asked from the bedroom. “Nobody,” I said. I turned and touched the pot. Still warm, even tho it had been a

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Fiction, Translations
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by Ahmad Shafie, translated from the arabic by Humphrey Davies The poem is by Egyptian writer Ahmad Shafei and comes from his verse collection: 77 (Cairo: Kutubkhan, 2017), where it is untitled but numbered 51. Translated by Humphrey Davies Birds have no hands. They don’t expect a crutch in old age Or a pat on the back in their moment of weakness Or rings Or keys Or a goodbye wave.   Poetry? They sing it and don’t care. History? They shit in the air. Life? They wing it. Death? They die alone.               الطيور                        لا يدي لها لا تنتظر في شيخوختها سندًا ولا في ضعفها ،تربيتةً بلا خواتمَ لا مفاتيحَ                                            .لا تلويحة في وداع   والقصائد؟ .تزقزقها ولا تبالي والتاريخ؟ .تخرأ من

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Poetry, Translations
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I crouch down to hug her but she smacks my arm and says, “Are you seriously that much taller than me?”          Dina ((All names have been changed to maintain anonymity. All drawings belong to an unnamed inmate and shared with her permission. All photos belong to the interviewee.)) was the shortest of her family, her petite frame no match for the blunt (some would say rude) voice she emitted.  I hadn’t seen her in a while, not since she moved to Oman for her teaching job at an elementary school. Every time I did though, she’d ask

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Non-Fiction
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Late November, Saturday evening, 7pm. The launch party is about to begin in a traditional, high-ceilinged Lebanese house, now an art and performance space. Rima rushes about, checking on the food, the sound system, the newly delivered boxes of Rusted Radishes, while I try to stay out of the way. I wander down the hall and back, admire the tall, arched windows of the room where a microphone is set up, then return to the front of the building, curious about the organization that now occupies it. In the entry room, which holds bookshelves and a coffee menu, a young

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Non-Fiction
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About Us
Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal was founded in the English Department of the American University of Beirut in 2012 with the intention of creating a space for both emerging and established writers who have a connection to Lebanon.
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