http://www.mahmouddarwish.com/english/article2.htm



Like Yehuda Amichai, the Israeli poet he read in Hebrew as a young man, Mr. Darwish has given expression to his people's ordinary longings and desires. He writes, he said, with "an eye toward the beautiful," and would like his poetry to be read for its literary attributes." "Sometimes I feel as if I am read before I write," he added, clearly frustrated. "When I write a poem about my mother, Palestinians think my mother is a symbol for Palestine. But I write as a poet, and my mother is my mother. She's not a symbol."

He has written some fairly militant poems, and they have not gone unnoticed. His 1988 poem "Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words," published in the early days of the first intifada, provoked an outcry among Israelis, including some of the poet's left- wing friends. Although Mr. Darwish insisted that he was addressing Israeli soldiers ("Live wherever you like, but do not live among us"), many Israelis interpreted the poem as a call for them to evacuate the region altogether.

"I said what every human being living under occupation would say, `Get out of my land,' " Mr. Darwish said. "I don't consider it a good poem, and I have never included it in any of my anthologies."

In March 2000 Yossi Sarid, who was then the education minister of Israel, suggested including a few of Mr Darwish's poems in the Israeli high school curriculum. After right- wing members of President Ehud Barak's coalition government threatened a vote of no-confidence, Mr. Barak declared that "Israel is not ready" for Mr. Darwish's work.

"The Israelis do not want to teach students that there is a love story between an Arab poet and this land," Mr. Darwish said. "I just wish they'd read me to enjoy my poetry, not as a representative of the enemy."