September 5, 2024

It Always Starts with Words

by Olivia Elias

trans. by Jérémy Victor Robert

We are honored to publish Olivia Elias’s “It Always Starts with Words,” published as part of Mizna 25.1: Catastrophe Issue. Link to order here.

above the ghetto in flames   
frantically dance the goddesses
of vengeance & conquest

Double, double toil and trouble

—Olivia Elias

It Always Starts with Words

the fortieth day is over
& so it’s night
the dove didn’t return
did she lose her way back
engulfed in phosphoric
smog     is she lying 
wings broken     under rubble

fireballs zigzagging in the sky
explode into
monstrous clouds of black smoke
& one after the other the time
to count one two three  
houses collapse like sandcastles 
their inhabitants inside

/

Fire burn and cauldron bubble
sing the fateful witches,

blood will have blood
& death will feed on death

It always starts with words

their mouths   missiles launchpads
spit in a steady stream
death sentences

 terrorist     all of them without any exception

terrorist in the making      even in their mother’s
womb      they say

/

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
sing the fateful witches,

“Mowing the lawn” 
“Flattening the landscape”
         “Sterilizing”

It always starts with words

sterilizing language     sterilizing life
ravishing it from Latin rapere
taking by force

above the ghetto in flames   
frantically dance the goddesses
of vengeance & conquest

Double, double toil and trouble

/

refugee in my home thousands
& thousands miles far from there  
I sometimes raise my head &
look outside

the light is so beautiful   it seems unreal

does horror have no bottom just like hell?

November 21, 2023

____

*”Blood will have blood” and “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble” come from Shakespeare, Macbeth, Acts III and IV

“Born in Haifa in 1944, Olivia Elias, a poet of the Palestinian diaspora who has been living on three continents, writes in French. Translated into Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Japanese, her work has been published in numerous reviews. In November 2022, with Chaos, Crossing, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and shortlisted for the Sarah Maguire 2024 International Poetry Prize, she made her English-language debut. In September 2023, she published Your Name, Palestine, a chapbook translated by Sarah Riggs and Jérémy Victor Robert (both books published by
 World Poetry). https://eliasolivia.com 

Jérémy Victor Robert is a translator between English and French who works and lives in his native Réunion Island. He published French translations of Sarah Riggs’ Murmurations (APIC, 2021, with Marie Borel), Donna Stonecipher’s Model City (joca seria, 2020), and Etel Adnan’s Sea & Fog (L’Attente, 2015). He recently translated Michael Palmer’s Little Elegies for Sister Satan, excerpts of which were posted online by Revue Catastrophes. Together with Sarah Riggs, he translated Olivia Elias’ Your Name, Palestine (World Poetry Books, 2023).

Toward a Free Palestine: Resources to Learn About and Act for Palestine

We are proud to present this text as part of a list of resources to take action for and learn about Palestine, as well as works by Palestinian artists, writers, activists, and cultural workers.