By Eelco van Riel

The short:

A collection of poems by Mahmoud Darwish, arguably Palestine’s most beloved 20th-century poet. His poems – the poems here collected – are evocative. They summon and beckon. They speak of the land, of longed-for beginnings, and of an ever-present past.

The long:

In ‘Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?’, Mahmoud Darwish draws a landscape – a space infused with meaning, burdened with history, imprinted with the comings and goings of civilizations. It is the estrangement from and the longing to return to this space or, rather, place, a land of soil and earth that carries the “scent of cardamom and hay”, that are the leitmotifs of the poems in this collection.

To read or not to read:

Read. Darwish skillfully broaches the checkered history of his homeland, that is Palestine, in ‘Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?’. Myth and history, colors, and tastes are skillfully woven and threaded into beautiful poems. They are carefully composed, never angry, and never embittered. They convey his experience – a collective experience – in a wonderful manner.