Mahmoud Darwish
 
Translation by Rema Hammami & John Berger. 
 
Verso: 2009. First edition. Hardcover in a jacket. Octavo. A few smudges on the jacket with more on the back. A few bumps on the edges of the boards. Some foxing on the bottom edge. 68 pages. Very good. 
 
The Nobel committe will never live down its cowardice for wanting to wait until it was safe to award the Palestinian Darwish the prize. Any page you open in this book - two of his last and greatest poems - proves it. And the Berger opening piece is far out, impressionistic and ecstatic instead of mere background.  
 
"Teach me poetry 
in case a girl needs a song 
for her distant beloved: 
Take me to you even by force and prepare my bed in your hands
And they walked interlaced towards the echo 
as though I had married a runaway fawn to a gazelle 
and opened the church door for the pigeons 
 
Teach me poetry"