HeyJaredArabLit’s Wednesday Poetry
Each Wednesday, we'll send a new poem in translation to your inbox.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 13
- Latest publication
- Sep 30, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 8, 2026
Latest issues
Wednesday Poetry: Muzaffar al-Nawwab’s ‘A Poem from the World of Cats’ (opens the original)
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As a notoriously scathing critic of Arab leaders, the Iraqi poet Muzaffar al-Nawwab (1934-2022) spent most of his life roaming in exile. He studied his bachelor’s degree at the University of Baghdad but was terminated from his subsequent job as a teacher due to his political affiliations. Some years later—after being sentenced to death then pardoned, no less—he fled his beloved homeland and wandered nomadically across the Arab world.This poem of his, ‘A Poem from the World of Cats’, featured in
Wednesday Poetry: Rana Al-Tonsi’s ‘Loneliness’ (opens the original)
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Rana al-Tonsi (b. 1981) is a Cairo-born poet and writer. She has ten published poetry collections to her name, including The Book of Games (2015) and Index of Fear (2018). Al-Tonsi’s poetry rips open a window into the raw realities of loneliness, motherhood, and love—through her tender words, she plants her vulnerabilities under a spotlight and anchors her spiralling thoughts with the weightiness of verse.This poem, ‘Loneliness’, can be found in her latest collection, Incomplete (الناقص). Read t
Wednesday Poetry: Muhammad Al-Turki’s ‘Now You Are All of Us’ (opens the original)
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Born in Riyadh in 1983, the Saudi poet Muhammad Al-Turki secured his bachelor’s degree in Arabic from Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University before setting his professional sights on media and broadcasting. But by no means did his career distance Al-Turki from language and literature: to date, the poet has published four poetry collections, including his 2023 The Lost and Found Department. Al-Turki won the prestigious Okaz International Prize for Arabic Poetry in 2017, and was crowned the win
Wednesday Poetry: Eiman El-Nour’s ‘This October Is Not Green’ (opens the original)
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Eiman El-Nour, a literary scholar from Sudan, obtained her PhD in Literature from London’s SOAS before assuming the role of Associate Professor at Khartoum’s Al-Neelain University and Omdurman’s Ahfad University. She is also a Fellow of Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge. El-Nour’s research focuses on African women’s writing, Sudanese literature (the works of the eminent Tayeb Salih, in particular), and oral literary traditions.To understand the context of El-Nour’s poem ‘This Octobe
Wednesday Poetry: Bassma Sheikho’s ‘Scream’ (opens the original)
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Bassma Sheikho (b. 1986) is a poet, writer, and visual artist from Damascus. She graduated with a master’s degree in Interior Architecture from her home city’s university and went on to teach there as well as at the Arab International University (AIU). In addition to a short story collection published in 2014, Sheikho has published four poetry collections to date, with her 2018 A Sea Afraid of Drowning being the most recent. Her poems have been translated into various languages, including Japane
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