I suppose these thresholds are sites of transformation, places of danger and self-recognition." I suppose these thresholds are sites of transformation, places of danger and self-recognition. "This particular poem is an elegy to my beloved Cairo and to my generation's youth - its anger, its sense of humour, its spirit of defiance… the idea of thresholds are present in my poems from the beginning. Together with her translator, Robyn Creswell, they decided to title this collection after a poem called al-ʿataba, in Arabic – the threshold, which Mersal said, "marks a shift in the collection's tone of voice, as well as its geography - the move from Egypt to North America. "In Arabic, I never gave to any of my poetry collections the title of a poem rather, book titles evoked each collection's mood and set of experiences," she told CBC Books via email. Mersal, who currently teaches at the University of Alberta, belongs to a generation of Arab writers reimagining traditional poetic forms. Originally written in Arabic, the poems collected in The Threshold were selected from four of Mersal's past books: A Dark Alley Suitable for Dance Lessons, Walking as Long as Possible, Alternative Geography and Until I Give Up the Idea of Home respectively published between 1995 to 2013. ![]() Her latest collection, The Threshold, follows decades of her writing where the personal and political become intertwined. ![]() Egyptian poet Iman Mersal is considered one of the prominent poetic voices in the Arab world today.
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