So What

<p><br>“Taha Muhammad Ali speaks with an emotional forthrightness. . . . He has developed a style that seems both ancient and new deceptively simple and movingly direct.”—<I>The Washington Post</I></p> <I> </I><p><br>Taha Muhammad Ali is a revered Palestinian poet whose work is driven by vivid imagination disarming humor and unflinching honesty. As a boy he was exiled from his hometown but rather than turning to a protest poetry of black-and-white slogans to convey this loss he has created art of the highest order. His poems portray experiences that range from catastrophe to splendor each preserving an essential human dignity.</p><p> <I>Neither music</I><br> <I>fame nor wealth</I><br> <I>not even poetry itself</I><br> <I>could provide consolation</I><br> <I>for life's brevity</I><br> <I>or the fact that</I> King Lear<br><I>is a mere eighty pages long and comes to an end</I><BR><I>and for the thought that one might suffer greatly</I><BR><I>on account of a rebellious child.</I></p><p><br> <I>So What</I> will include Arabic <I>en face</I> and introductions by co-translators Gabriel Levin and Peter Cole. Muhammad Ali will be one of the international poets featured at the 2006 Dodge Poetry Festival and he will embark on a reading tour of the United States in the fall of 2006.</p>