"In January 2002, while Israeli tanks were incircling the Moukhata, headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, and were bombarding the city of Ramallah, the poet Mahmoud Darwish, shut up in his house like all the inhabitants of the city, was writing poems. They were published under the title "State of Siege" and almost everyone of them spoke of love, of the landscapes of Palestine, of the sky and of the song of the nightingale. Some reproached him at the time, as always, for not writing more political texts... Mahmoud Darwish died last summer. He must be read, today, as yesterday, so as not to despair of life.
"Kamilya Jubran is also a Palestinian. She composes music from poems that inspire her and she sings them, accompanied by her oud, the extraordinary traditional instrument of Mashrek music. And today, as a dead silence follows the din of arms in Gaza, she prepares to sing at the Institut du monde arabe, Saturday night. To sing, in her turn, of love, of the landscapes of Palestine, of the sky and of the song of the nightingale. Because these are the arms of poetry."
