Jean-Charles-Joseph Rémond / Creative Commons & Getty Museum

Language is born from the earth, born from history
if you inhabit the earth you inhabit language
you inhabit the world through the earth
you inhabit the world through language.   

If you inhabit your land
sing the cracks of your sky
its fires its splits
tell fault its magnitude
tell the sky its openings
let the rumor of the ages reach us

If you inhabit the sky you live other heavens
you inhabit in the echo of other languages
the echo of other beings
you inhabit the earth the other lands.   

Here the circle opens and the voices unfold
from the cardinal points to your song your call
it’s the same chord that speaks
joined to other voices.   

Here an echo opens that opens the circle
come the lands come the stories
Here the borders hang.   

If we share the same language
we do not share the same shore
we do not carry the same memory.  

But if we share the same breath
we share the same sea
beyond the seas
we share to hear the banks of breath
the memory of every memory.    

If we translate languages ​​on the tongue
if we translate the wind of the sands the erosion of the senses
we share the same sea.

A land inhabits us a poem founded us
we sculpt the same language
know how to translate the horizons and thresholds
meet the toppling of destinies.  

Bring the song missing from the song
language springs from all languages
it is from absence that language is born.  

If we share the same language
place your song on the tongue.

Samira Negrouche
Critically acclaimed writer Samira Negrouche was born in Algiers where she continues to live and work. Author of eleven poetry collections, several artists’ books and a collection of essays, she is a poet and translator who enjoys multidisciplinary collaborations, frequently working with musicians, visual artists and choreographers. Her work has been shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the National Translation Award in Poetry. Her publications in English include The Olive Trees' Jazz and Other Poems (Pleiades Press, 2020), translated by Marilyn Hacker and Solio (Seagull Books, 2024), translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson. 

Nathalie Handal
Nathalie Handal is described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” She has lived in four continents, is the author of 10 award winning books, translated into over 15 languages, including Life in a Country Album, winner of the Palestine Book Award; the flash collection The Republics, lauded as “one of the most inventive books by one of today’s most diverse writers,” and winner of the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing and the Arab American Book Award. Handal is the recipient of awards from the PEN Foundation, Lannan Foundation, Fondazione di Venezia, Centro Andaluz de las Letras, and Africa Institute, among others. She is professor of literature and creative writing at New York University-AD, and writes the literary travel column, “The City and the Writer” for Words without Borders magazine.