A Letter to Freedom | A Poem by Ali Taha Alnobani

A Letter to Freedom — Ali Taha Alnobani

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.

Freedom, Language, and Unequal Power

The poem begins not with a public declaration but with a personal address. Its speaker struggles to gather himself and speak, only to be met by warning signals. A ceiling presses upon his chest; words lose their meaning; his voice slips away. Repression is experienced not merely as a political condition, but as a crisis of expression and the self.

The woman addressed in the poem remains deliberately ambiguous. She evokes movement and desire, yet also the marginalization that can shadow those imagined as living beyond convention. The poem's disturbing imagery resists a single interpretation: freedom may be visible, even celebrated, while still being withheld from the speaker.

The River and the Returning Cycle

A recurring image of the river running dry evokes a historical cycle: people struggle for freedom, achieve it, and then watch new forms of domination take hold. The rose-colored frame is at once a seductive promise that may conceal disappointment and a genuine hope the human spirit cannot abandon.

The final request — that freedom become the speaker's shroud if oppression destroys him — preserves both tenderness and anguish. It is neither a simple slogan nor a declaration of certain victory. The poem leaves open what it means to seek freedom in a world where its promises are repeatedly deferred.

First published in Arabic in Alnobani's 2009 poetry collection Another Street (شارع آخر), the poem appears below in an English literary version revised and edited by the author.

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A Letter to Freedom

Ali Taha Alnobani

English version revised and edited by the author

My Gypsy lady, Everything here oppresses me: my language, my tongue scorched by the fire of exile, and my songs inhabited by fear. I gather myself, and long to speak, and warning signals bombard me from every side. I hold my breath like a slaughtered day. *** My lady, My words carry no meaning, for the ceiling sleeps upon my chest. I stammer, and my voice slips away. *** My lady, Ever since you took off your clothes beside the monkeys of the night, and your things were laid bare, swimming in the blue bone, I knew I would stretch out my hand toward an eternal void that never runs dry, and swim for ages within my chains. *** My lady, The dream has not yet come to completion, and you are still a rose-colored frame for a departure awaited since time immemorial, a glimmer in eyes made sore by the recurring spectacle of the river running dry. *** My lady, be my shroud if I never taste the light of the sun and oppression destroys me.

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Read and Explore

Wattpad: A Letter to Freedom — English poem

Original Arabic: رسالة إلى الحرية — Al Diwan

More poems by the author: Another Street | The Whirlwind

Poem © Ali Taha Alnobani. Introductory literary commentary by THE BIRD. The English poem is an author-revised literary translation of the Arabic original.