my revolt was in vainsilence gives me its breastits musicsimple, sincereflows like ablution waterthat preludes the call to prayerthe words born on the lips of the Guidetransport knowledge’s wineby the barrelI pursued this elixir as soon as the sunlovingly drank up the mist before my eyesfrom temple to templeand soon the moon out of pity’s sake gave me a pebbleorphaned from quarterly vigila shaft of light precedes meand my backin turnclumsily reflectsthe slender harp-shaped form of the beingwho kindly walkedin my faltering stepsmy revolt was in vainno regretsthe journey is longtomorrow I’ll set off againwith dawn slung over my shoulder
Access
Abdourahman A. Waberi
Translated from the French
Feature Date
- August 11, 2021
Series
- Translation
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“Access” from NAMING THE DAWN: by Abdourahman A. Waberi.
Published by Seagull Books May 15th, 2018.
English Translation Copyright © 2018 by Nancy Naomi Carlson.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Photo:
Michael Setzfandt
Michael Setzfandt
An acclaimed author from Djibouti, Abdourahman Waberi has published several books of fiction (including In the United States of Africa, Transit) non-fiction, poetry and a film script, Sankara. His work has been translated into a multitude of languages. Abdourahman Waberi has received many awards and fellowships, including a Villa Médicis – Académie de France Rome fellowship, a DAAD Berliner Kunstlerprogram and La Grande Médaille de la Francophonie from L’Académie française. A current columnist for the French newspaper Le Monde, Waberi teaches French and Francophone Literature and Creative Writing at George Washington University in Washington DC.
Nancy Naomi Carlson is a poet, translator, and essayist, and has authored eleven titles (seven translated). An Infusion of Violets was published by Seagull Books (2019) and named a “New & Noteworthy” title by the New York Times. A recipient of two literature translation grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, she has been decorated by the French government with the Academic Palms. Her translation of Alain Mabanckou’s As Long As Trees Take Root in the Earth is forthcoming from Seagull Books later this month. She is a professor of graduate counseling at Walden University.
"With Naming the Dawn, Abdourahman A. Waberi delivers a magnificent poetic art, where the deciphering of the poem—the patient rhythm of reading, listening to signs—is a discovery of self and sacred texts, and ultimately, of the religious spirit . . . Mingling indiscriminately poetic writing and reading of the sacred texts—of the Quran—the author proposes here a formidable plea in favor of tolerance and openness."
—Elera Bertho, Diacritick, on the French edition
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