The General Delegation of the PLO to the United States commemorates the 13th of March, birthday of the Palestinian National Poet Mr. Mahmoud Darwish

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The General Delegation of the PLO to the United States commemorates the 13^th of March, birthday of the Palestinian National Poet Mr. Mahmoud Darwish.

Mahmoud Darwish was a poet and academic renowned for his beautiful, and fiercely national writings. He tackled pertinent and controversial issues such as exile, identity, and watan (homeland) with eloquent poems and reasoned articles.

The selection below is an excerpt from one of Darwish's most famous poem “Write down: I am an Arab”

Write down
I am an Arab
And I work with comrades in a stone quarry
And my children are eight in number.
For them I hack out
a loaf of bread
clothing
a school exercise-book
from the rocks
rather than begging for alms
at your door
rather than making myself small
at your doorsteps.
Does this bother you?