Our Monthly Poetry Collection is published on the first Tuesday of each month and curated by Palestinian-American poet Zeina Azzam. For the month of September, we feature “The Deluge and the Tree,” by Fadwa Tuqan.

Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003) hailed from a large and well-known family in the West Bank City of Nablus. She grew up in the conservative environment of the time and felt constraints in terms of freedom as a woman in Arab society. Her brother Ibrahim Tuqan—one of the most famous Palestinian poets—influenced her development in literary knowledge and strongly supported her education. She later studied English literature at Oxford . Fadwa Tuqan’s poetry delved into difficult and emotional topics such as the pain of dispossession, loss of Palestine, Israeli military occupation, and massive injustices; at the same time, it evinced hopefulness, resistance, and national pride. She also wrote about her experience as a female living in a traditional society.  

Her verse evolved to shake off some of the earlier formal styles of the first half of the 20^th century and assumed freer forms, as Arabic poetry was opening up to less structure and more experimentation. Tuqan was prolific and published over a dozen collections of poetry and a two-part autobiography. Palestine’s poet laureate, Mahmoud Darwish, called Tuqan umm al-shi`r al-falastini (mother of Palestinian poetry).  

One can read Tuqan’s poem, “The Deluge and the Tree,” as an overarching metaphor for Palestine and the Nakba, the catastrophe that began in 1948 with the war and violent dislocation of Palestinian society (and continues to this day). As the “deluge” and “hurricane” of war assault the tree, it nevertheless stands steadfast, and its roots remain alive and growing. The Palestinians are drawn back to this mother tree, which is lush with green leaves growing abundantly in the sun. They are like birds that return home to claim their rightful patrimony; indeed, the last line of the poem is “The birds shall return.”

Read the complete poem here.

About Zeina Azzam

Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. Her poems are published widely in literary journals, anthologies, and edited volumes. Zeina’s chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, was released by The Poetry Box on May 18, 2021. She holds an M.A. in Arabic literature from Georgetown University.