Poem

Samira Negrouche

Side by side

it seems unlikely to me

It seems unlikely to me
that a key-word
would open anything whatever
worth the bother
words don’t open anything
actually
function paralyses words
I acknowledge the statistic
paralyses
all the software
by saturation

© Translation: 2020, Marilyn Hacker
From: The Olives Trees’ Jazz & Other Poems
Publisher: Pleiades, Warrensburg Missouri, 2020

il me semble difficile

il me semble difficile
qu’un mot-clé
puisse ouvrir quoi que ce soit
qui en vaille la peine
les mots n’ouvrent rien
véritablement
la fonction paralyse le mot
j’assume la statistique
paralyse
tout logiciel
par saturation

Samira Negrouche

(Algeria, 1980)

“Poetry and Resistance appear as two edges of the same blade on which we tirelessly hone our dignity.”
Jean Sénac, Le Soleil sous les armes, 1957.

Samira Negrouche is part of a new generation of Francophone Algerian poets: a 'species' thought to be destined for disappearance with the post-revolutionary adoption of Arabic as first language in schools and universities. Still, Francophone Algeria...