A Film of Nathalie Handal's poem "Biznagas", from "Poet in Andalucia"

Nathalie Handal's new book, Poet in Andalucia, looks to Federico Garcia Lorca's work Poet in New York, and seeks to recreate Lorca's "journey in reverse." According to Publishers Weekly, "Arabic, Spanish, Ladino Catalan, and fragments of other languages are woven together as the poems muse over borders between where one voice or language ends and another begins."


You can get a sense for this in the beautiful film by Rana Kazkaz, based on Nathalie's poem "Biznagas". The poem features Handal, along with Zayn Khalaf and Mary Sidor, and music by Kevin MacLeod. And you can read the English translation below.
(If you have difficulty viewing the full video below it can also be seen here.)

Biznagas

To belong

even if you’ve kept the hours

in your closet—

it takes years

to forget a person

who merely looked up at you—

it takes years

to understand why

while you walk

the leaves dictate

how your heart

will beat—

it takes years

it takes years

to hold the wind

in your mouth

have it accommodate what it can’t

a history

the clash of two moons

the slopes after heavy rain

and then the biznagas

remind you—

it takes years

to come back

from the direction

that divides you