The real question should be: what makes a good political poem? The possible answers to that question are both obvious and yet… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I came to poetry at fourteen, in the middle of a booming oil-rush town in southern Arabia without a single public library:… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Poetry either pulses with real life or it's just an aborted simulacra. There's no middle ground. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Whenever poetry and politics are mentioned in the same breath, we tend to miss the point entirely - as I often have… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I don't like poems that invent memories, I have enough of my own. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
That boom town [Abu Dhabi] proved to be the reef against which my family crashed, the story of many who seek the… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Most of us have been subjected to terrible political poetry at least once or twice in our lifetimes, and so we tend… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
One cannot simply decide to write apolitical poetry, in the way one decides to drink lemonade instead of tea, it's far more… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I'm of the opinion that poetry is always political, and cannot help but be so, regardless of the poet's intent, given that… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
[Abdellatif Laâbi] was a poet and worked as a high school teacher; and although he hadn't broken any laws, the Moroccan government… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
To be a political poet means simply to be a poet, and any poet worth their salt will be a political animal… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I can't quite see the point of poems like "Wittgenstein Goes for a Walk with A Hawk in Sherwood Forest." I know… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Everyone wants to be open and inclusive, but nobody wants to pay for it. It's the biggest roadblock to translating living writers,… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
The average political poem - especially the kind that wears this label all too proudly - is both dull and full of… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Translators who choose to work on canonized writers can usually lean on an extensive critical apparatus around either the author or the book in… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
The real question should be: what makes a good political poem? The possible answers to that question are both obvious and yet still a… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
As the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe has presciently pointed out, neoliberal corporate globalism threatens to exploit that advantage like never before, and it seems… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I've heard of translators collaborating closely with their authors, sometimes even living with them for a while, but that's not me. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
When it comes to the challenges of the actual process, I soldier on as best I can, on my own. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I came to poetry at fourteen, in the middle of a booming oil-rush town in southern Arabia without a single public library: Abu Dhabi,… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Poetry either pulses with real life or it's just an aborted simulacra. There's no middle ground. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Whenever poetry and politics are mentioned in the same breath, we tend to miss the point entirely - as I often have - and… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I don't like poems that invent memories, I have enough of my own. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
That boom town [Abu Dhabi] proved to be the reef against which my family crashed, the story of many who seek the promised land,… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Most of us have been subjected to terrible political poetry at least once or twice in our lifetimes, and so we tend to shy… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Regardless of whether the authors I've translated have been "dead and canonized," or "living and established," or even simply "emerging," I must put myself… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image