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Poetry 
The Arab poet 
who inspired 
JK Rowling 
g4V 
K Rowling has 
long possessed 
the mythical 
philosopher's knack 
of turning every 
stone she touches to 
gold, so when she cited 
the Palestinian poet 
Mahmoud Darwish as 
a political inspiration, you 
know he's a made man. 
Except that, in the 
Arab world, Darwish, 
2 The Guardian 2810.15 
who died at the age of 67 in 
2008, needs no magic boost: long 
regarded as Palestine's national 
poet, he has given voice to suffer- 
ing with poems such as Identity 
Card (Write down! / I am an Arab 
/ And my identity card number 
is fifty thousand / I have eight 
children / And the ninth will 
come after a summer / Will 
you be angry?). 
Rowling named the poet 
in an extended 
ian last week, she would not be 
joining a cultural boycott. "The 
true human cost of the Palestin- 
ian conflict was seared upon my 
consciousness, as upon many 
others', by the heart-splitting 
poetry of Mahmoud Darwish," 
she wrote. "I believe strongly that 
cultural dialogue and collabora- 
tion is more important than ever 
before and that cultural boycotts 
are divisive, discriminatory and 
counter-productive." 
MahmoudDarwiSh The problem with this 
tweet explaining 
Tie Butted?ys Burden 
why, despite be- 
reading of Darwish and 
ing among 150 
signatories 
Who called 
for a dialogue 
with Israel in 
an open letter 
to the Guard* 
his work, however, is 
that his life was a cata- 
logue of dialogue denied. 
Burnt out of his home 
village of Birwa as a small 
child, he fell in and out 
of love with the PLO, 
spent much of his life in exi e an 
ended it in a Texas hospital. 
Four years before his death, 
he was awarded a major prize 
in Holland, giving a speech that 
gestured at the "charming illu- 
sion" of art: "A person can only 
be born in one place. However, he 
may die several times elsewhere: 
in the exiles and prisons, and in 
a homeland transformed by the 
occupation and oppression into 
a nightmare," he said. "Poetry is 
perhaps what teaches us to nur- 
ture the charming illusion: how 
to be reborn out of ourselves over 
and over again, and use words to 
construct a better world, a ficti- 
tious world that enables us to sign 
a pact for a permanent and com- 
prehensive peace ... with life." 
Claire Armitstead