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Review by Martin Tucker in Confrontations for Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?

Darwish’s collection is a lyrical lamentation not so much of pain as tender woundings of exile. His is a beautifully produced volume—English on one side, Arabic script on the other—in which the poet speaks to his people of daily jousts with the love of life. What is remarkable about Darwish’s work in this collection is the lack of oratorical protest. His simple words, his profound compassionate utterances, his empathy with common pursuits produce a flow of poetry that threatens to flood the reader/hearer out of control yet never does, for the power of his poetry is containment in depth. Darwish goes deep in a seemingly untutored innocence of craft, yet his craft is this same magnificent deception of innocence.

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