The AP has a wrap story in which this quote appears: “Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist and lecturer in cultural studies at Al Quds University in Jerusalem … described Darwish’s poetry as ‘the easy impossible,’ for Darwish’s ability to condense the Palestinian narrative into simple, evocative language — breaking away from the more traditional heavy, emotive and rhythmic verse of other Arab poets”.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080810/ap_on_re_mi_ea/obit_darwish;
_ylt=Ahlrd6iL3P2EvrxQmEsWdDkLewgF

And, Angry Arab posted this on Sunday:
“I should write something about Mahmud Darwish. I have translated quite a few of his poems here. I like his oldest Diwan very much and have read it repeatedly over the years. My taste in Arabic poetry is rather old-fashioned: I like the classical ones, and I like the modern Iraqi poets, but have always appreciated Darwish. I was perhaps avoiding writing about Darwish because there is so much emotions involved. His death is a big deal in the Arab world: a Mauritanian poet was talking to AlJazeera about the sadness in Mauritania. His death in the Arab context is comparable to the death of say, Pushkin for Russian, or like the death of Victor Hugo in France when people roamed the streets yelling that Victor Hugo has died. At the personal level (as I knew a lot about him), I did not like him. At the political level, I did not like him at all. But at the literary level: he is peerless … My friend Sinan was telling me that so many of the Arab eulogies were annoying, and I could not agree more. Saudi media hated him, and to his credit, and despite all my political disagreements with him (not that he knew about them or cared), he really never liked the Gulf regimes and did not visit there to my knowledge. He had that visit to Iraq, and Al-Watan Al-`Arabi reported at the time that he called Saddam “the knight of Arabism” but other people who knew him well said that it was not true, and that he was not pleased with the visit. But his relation with Arafat was very problematic. He could not break with Arafat at all, and wanted to have it both ways: to pretend that he was some independent Palestinian intellectual while maintaining that poisonous relations with that awful figure of Palestinian national politics. There is so much that can be said about his literary genius, but for me his major accomplishment were: 1) that he was able to extricate himself artistically from the adulation of the masses: he once said in the early 1970s in a major reading in Beirut–according to a witness who told me–something to the effect: please spare me that love; 2) that he was courageous in expressing himself poetically without regard to mass taste. No matter how much we wanted him to go back to the early years of direct political poetry, he continued ot develop his own style as if living in his own world. That is his greatest fete [sic - it should be spelled feat] as a poet…[And] his prose is not much appreciated. If he was being interviewed, I used to be mesmerized. Nobody I know uses Arabic prose or write it as he did. It was incredible. I have many favorites in Darwish’s poetry, but his poem after the fall of Tal Az-Za`tar is one of my favorites (Ahmad Az-Za`tar–I translated most of it before here)”.

In a separate, later, posting on Sunday, Angry Arab wrote: “You need to read this account of Mahmud Darwish by his friend `Abdul-Bari `Atwan: 1) he describes his fury at the U.S. as his visa to the U.S. was delayed for four months despite the intervention of U.S. puppet, Abu Mazen; 2) he describes how he reached poverty after Oslo, when `Arafat punished him for his opposition to Oslo by cutting off his funding. PS Notice that U.S. media accounts of Darwish ignored: 1) that he was an early communist; 2) that he was put under house arrest by the Israeli occupation government for his…POETRY”.

And in another, later, posting on Sunday, Angry Arab added this translation of one of Mahmoud Darwish’s poems:
“Our Country is a Graveyard by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):
‘Gentlemen, you have transformed
our country into a graveyard
You have planted bullets in our heads,
and organized massacres
Gentlemen, nothing passes like that
without account
All what you have done
to our people is
registered in notebooks’ …”
http://www.angryarab.blogspot.com/

And, here, from Saturday 4 December 2004, is Angry Arab’s translation of his favorite Mahmoud Darwish poem:
From Ahmad Az-Za`tar by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):
“I am the Arab Ahmad–he said
I am the bullets the oranges
the memories
I found myself near myself
So I went away from the dew
and the maritime scene
Tal Az-Za`tar the tent
I am the country, when it came
And it reincarnated me
I am the constant travel
to the country
I found myself
enveloping myself…
Ahmad went to meet
with his hands and ribs
He was the step and the star
from the ocean to the Gulf,
from the Gulf, to the ocean
They were preparing the spears
Ahmad the Arab was ascending
to see Haifa
and jump.
Ahmad is now the hostage
The city left its streets
and came to him
to kill him
and from the Gulf to the ocean,
and from the ocean to the Gulf,
they were preparing the funeral
and the selection of the guillotine
I am the Arab Ahmad–
let the siege come
my body is the gate–
let the siege come
I am the boundaries of fire–
let the siege come
I besiege you
besiege you
My chest is the door
for all the people–
let the siege come
My song did not come
to draw Ahmad the blue
in the trench
Memories are behind my back,
and he is the day of the sun
and carnation
Oh, ye boy who is between
two windows
Do not exchange my letters
Resist
Resemblance is for the sand…
and you are for the blue… ”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2004/12/from-ahmad-az-zatar-by-palestinian.html