What happens when freedom is available to the powerful but remains painfully out of reach for those who struggle even to speak?
In A Letter to Freedom, Jordanian poet Ali Taha Alnobani addresses freedom as an elusive woman: intimate, radiant, rebellious, and vulnerable. The speaker's own language, songs, and breath are constrained, while freedom reveals herself before the “monkeys of the night” — an unsettling image of those who monopolize privilege and those who imitate their power.
Can love survive the loss of the beloved? And can the longing for immortality become a longing for freedom of movement?
Inspired by the forests of Jerash and Ajloun in Jordan, The Whirlwind moves from a bride's death to a serpent rising above a smooth rock, from the disappointed knight to a speaker who dreams of running through rugged paths and embracing a tree beneath the sky. Its imagery connects grief, nature, the body, and the limits of human existence.
What happens when some people appear to inherit radiance, privilege, and certainty, while others must keep searching for a place in the world?
In Another Street, Jordanian poet Ali Taha Alnobani leads the reader through a shifting landscape of enchanted vehicles, ancient structures, a commanding priest, fractured images of happiness, and streets that never quite become a home. The poem moves through surreal scenes without surrendering their ambiguity to a single explanation.
Selected Poems in English · Editorial introduction by THE BIRD
What if burning were not an ending, but a way of entering the movement of the universe? In Burning Colors, Jordanian poet Ali Taha Alnobani brings together a forgotten friend, a waitress, an inexhaustible-seeming glass, wind, fire, and dance in a four-part surrealist meditation on suffering and transformation.
Selected Poems in English · An editorial introduction by THE BIRD
A white duck stands beside a pond. A face gleams with confidence; a caravan leader cannot hear. Behind these disquieting images, The Pond by Jordanian poet Ali Taha Alnobani unfolds a layered vision of authority, compromised language, and the lives exposed to the consequences of power.
Selected Poems in English · An editorial introduction by THE BIRD
What happens when tomorrow arrives without the hope it once promised? In A Bouquet of Tales of Lostness, Jordanian poet Ali Taha Alnobani gathers ten interwoven poetic voices at the edge of a river, where travelers discover that the most painful estrangement can occur without ever leaving home.
Why would someone burn a field because wheat prolongs life? Why kill rabbits because they are eager? These disturbing contradictions form the opening of The Field and the Rabbits, a surrealist poem by Jordanian poet Ali Taha Alnobani.
Can sadness have a color? Can loneliness become a landscape, and can tears give birth to something beautiful? These questions resonate throughout The Tale of the Sorrowful Blue, a lyrical and surrealist poem by Jordanian poet Ali Taha Alnobani.
What happens when the ordinary world begins to lose its familiar meanings? A monkey licks tar beneath a red traffic light. An ancient king buys French fries. The goddess of love counts money, while the wind rises against a world struggling to recognize its own voice.
Octavio Paz (1914–1998) is one of the significant voices in Mexico’s literary history. The central question in this poet’s work is how the poem can become a meeting place for history and perception. To read these poems well is to enter a conversation about the possibilities of language, not merely memorize a name or a famous line.
.jpg "Wisława Szymborska — Polish Nobel Prize-Winning Poet")
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) is one of the significant voices in Poland's literary history. The central question in this poet's work is how a modest question can overturn confident assumptions. To read these poems well is to enter a conversation about the possibilities of language, not merely memorize a name or a famous line.
