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Contributor

Khaled Mattawa

Contributor

Khaled Mattawa

Khaled Mattawa was born in 1964 in Benghazi, Libya, where he received his primary education. In 1979 he immigrated to the United States. He is the author of two books of poems, Zodiac of Echoes and Ismailia Eclipse. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, the Alfred Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, and two Pushcart Prizes, and he won the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation in 2003 and 2011. His poems have appeared in numerous American journals and have been translated into French and Polish. Mattawa is also the translator of five volumes of Arabic poetry, and coeditor of two anthologies of Arab-American literature. He is an assistant professor of English and teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2014 he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Articles by Khaled Mattawa

In Perfect Happiness
By Iman Mersal
Before I sleepI will take the phone to bedand talk to them about many thingsto make sure they are really there,that they have dates for the weekend,and enough securitythat makes them fear old ageand makes…
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
He Marks the Weak Point
By Iman Mersal
Of course,the concrete pillars are not lacking in delicacy,and the columns of old houses are a nostalgia all their own.He added that he marks the weak pointand distributes its weight among the relatively…
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Sometimes Wisdom Possesses Me
By Iman Mersal
One day wisdom will possess me / and I will not go to the party.
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
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I Look Around Me
By Iman Mersal
With the alertness of a creatureexpecting its demiseI usually look around me.Perhaps that is whymy neck has a strengththat does not match my body,and what is surprisingis that I do not foresee live bulletsfrom…
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Things Elude Me
By Iman Mersal
One day I will pass by/ the house that used to be my home.
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
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Amina
By Iman Mersal
My perfect friend,/ why don't you leave now.
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
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I Have A Musical Name
By Iman Mersal
Maybe the window I sat byforetold an unusual glory.I wrote on my notebooks:Iman . . .A student at: Iman Mersal Elementary School.Neither the teacher's rodnor the laughs that leapt from the desks at…
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
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