Mahmoud Darwish’s “Like the Flower of Almond or Beyond”: The Poem of Exile and the Narrative of the Self and Community

Abstract

This study presents an in-depth analysis of Mahmoud Darwish’s Diwan “Like the Flower of Almond or Beyond” from the perspective of the self-narrative as part of the Palestinian collective identity and its relationship with exile as experienced and narrated by the poet. It becomes clear to the reader that the poet depicts, in this collection of poems, phases from his autobiography and from that of his community. The poet associates his personal narrative of exile with the traumatic Palestinian collective memory of successive tragic transformations generated by all forms of victimization such as exile into diaspora and uprooting from homeland the poet and his fellow countrymen were exposed to. In addition, the poet’s self-narrative reveals, at the same time, his perception of various issues such as death, love, childhood, old age, homeland,language, time, existence, and his view of the other; issues that are closely related to the life of exile that both the poet as an individual and his community lived in. The poet’s self-narrative also portrays, to a large extent, his vision, and the horizons he aspires to reach in this Diwan. Keywords: Mahmoud Darwish, Like the flower of almond or beyond, Modern arabic poetry, Exile poetry, Autobiography.