Universe, All at Once by Salim Barakat and translated by Huda J. Fakhreddine

This is poetry from Syria.

Universe, All at Once by Salim Barakat translated by Huda J. Fakhreddine is published by Seagull Books. This is a Book originally written in Arabic. This was published in 2024.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781803094038E12.

Universe, All at Once, by Salim Barakat and translated by Huda J. Fakhreddine from Arabic, brings Arabic-language poetry from Syria into English through Barakat’s universe-scale imagination, Syrian-Kurdish density, and the thrilling refusal to take things one at a time. The metadata gives the reader a doorway, but the real value is what happens once the poem starts making its own weather. I would read it for universe, abundance, syntax, and the sensation of language arriving in a storm rather than a line, not as a fixed lesson about Syria. The best entry point is still the poem itself: the line that catches, the image that refuses to explain itself, the feeling that arrives before paraphrase. Universe, All at Once belongs in the translated poetry library because it extends the Arabic shelf toward maximalist thought, animal force, and visionary excess.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.