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1994, Three Continents Press published by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 70 pgs, pbk, $ 12 in the US

Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet par excellence, has been writing poetry since the sixties and continues, until this day, to produce some of the most eloquent and touching verse not only in Palestine, but also in the Arabic language as a whole. His mastery of the language, his rich imagery, his profound understanding of the deepest human feelings, the music of his words, added to it a deep feeling of loss of the homeland and the

experience of the exodus for the most part of his life, makes of his poetry the most expressive of what it means to be a Palestinian and an Arab in the last few decades before the end of the second millennium.

As the translator, Ben Bennani, writes: Darwish's poetry refuses categorization. It is at once classical and modern, formal and colloquial, universal and personal, experiential as well as experimental as the next seventeen psalms amply illustrate. Though primarily "motivated" or "inspired" by political and military circumstances, the poems rise from their sources - like the phoenix - to celebrate what is at once personal and mythical, local and global, in language that is both simple and textured, natural and studied, culminating in both magic and rapture."

Darwish's psalms, first published in Arabic in 1972, are an excellent example of his poetry of longing: to the family, to the loved ones, to the homeland. They are full of beautiful imagery describing the minutest details of his memories of the land: the trees, the wind, the air, the smells, the earth, and his mother.

About the translator: Ben Bennani was born and raised in Lebanon to Moroccan parents, and was educated in classical and Islamic Arabic studies. He is an honors graduate of Dartmouth College and holds an MFA in poetry writing and a Ph.D. in comparative literature, as well as a graduate certificate in literary translation.