Senior poet Tan Lioe Ie recites Darwish’s masterpiece “State of Siege” during a public reading on Sunday. In the background is a screen displaying an image of the Palestinian poet. (JP/I Wayan Juniartha)

"I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet."

When Mahmoud Darwish made the above pronouncement in an interview with Nathalie Handal on March 22, 2002, for The Progressive, he may have been despondent.

He was proven wrong last Sunday, Oct. 5, 2008 when his words echoed across the globe.

The Ubud Writers & Readers Festival responded to a call by the Berlin International Literature Festival to host a worldwide reading in memory of Mahmoud Darwish. The event took place at Danes Art Veranda from 7.30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

"It was a magical evening and the words of Mahmoud Darwish struck a cord with the audience," said Festival Director Janet de Neefe.

Nine powerful poems by Mahmoud Darwish were selected and adapted into Bahasa Indonesia by Wayan Juniartha.

Bali-based poets Sonia Piscayanti, Wayan Sunarta, Pranita Dewi, Adnyana Ole and Tan Lioe Ie read the adapted work in their own inimitable style, highlighting the versatility and depth of Darwish's work. During the readings, English versions of the poems were simultaneously screened for international guests.

Although regarded as the Palestinian national poet, many argue that Darwish should have been honored as a national poet of Israel as well.

He was born on March 13, 1941, in the village of Barweh in Galilee, a village that was razed during the establishment of Israel in 1948.

In his work, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.

Darwish wrote in Arabic, but also spoke English, French and Hebrew.

He published more than thirty volumes of poetry and eight books of prose. His translated works have been published in 20 languages. A central theme in Darwish's poetry is the concept of watan or homeland.

"It reminded us all of our connection to the land, our home," said de Neefe after the reading.

Mahmoud Darwish died on Aug. 9, 2008 at the age of 67, three days after heart surgery at the Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. Before surgery, Darwish had signed a document asking not to be resuscitated in the event of brain death.

In 1988, Darwish was accused of demanding that Jews leave Israel for the following stanza in his poem, "Passers Between the Passing Words": So leave our land/Our shore, our sea/Our wheat, our salt, our wound.

Darwish was referring to the West Bank and Gaza.

Poet and translator Ammiel Alcalay wrote that "the hysterical overreaction to the poem simply serves as a remarkably accurate litmus test of the Israeli psyche ... (the poem) is an adamant refusal to accept the language of the occupation and the terms under which the land is defined."

Setting the scene for the evening, Sonia Piscayanti read two poems that gave insight on how Darwish perceived Palestine.

"No More, No Less" personifies Palestine as a woman. Accompanied by Italian musician Anello playing the middle-eastern ud, Sonia presented a woman living life as it is, in harsh reality. The second poem, "Who Am I?" lamented how exile has come to define Palestinian identity.

Despite his criticism of both Israel and the Palestinian leadership, Darwish believed that peace was attainable.

"I am patient and am waiting for a profound revolution in the consciousness of the Israelis," he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

At the Bali reading, eight poems were followed by a middle-eastern musical solo by Anello on the ud and ney in a journey that brought the audience around the Mediterranean and further inland to Galilee.

The grand finale of the evening was Darwish's epic poem, "A State of Siege", performed by Tan Lioe Ie in a lyrical fashion. Mesmerized by the performance, the audience was given insight into the disjointed lives of Palestinians: "In siege, life becomes the time/between remembering life's beginning/and forgetting its end."

And the poignancy of Darwish's cry for reconciliation with the Israelis: "But I hate detainment and I don't hate you."

In March 2000, when the inclusion of his poetry into Israel curriculum caused uproar in Israel's streets and parliament, Darwish sighed, "I am not a lover of Israel, of course. I have no reason to be. But I don't hate Jews."

With the death of Darwish, the debate about including his poetry in the Israeli school curriculum has been re-opened.

Throughout his prolific life as a poet, Darwish believed that only poetry could bring harmony to a world devastated by war: "Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by."

The poet has departed, but his words live on. Not in response to war, but to love; inspiring humanity.

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