Blood is Blood

Blood is Blood

Poetry

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About the book

  • Winner of the ZEBRA International Poetry Film Festival, “Best Film for Tolerance”

Blood is Blood is a collaborative book-length poem for two voices, dealing with the bloodshed in the Middle East, a version of which was commissioned for CBC Radio in 2006. Souaid, of Christian Lebanese descent, and Farkas, the child of Jewish Holocaust survivors, give this piece a special resonance.

Blood is Blood is a powerful encounter between two poets, from diametrically opposed backgrounds, whose cultural and personal lives intersect, clash and confront the truths and fictions that have become the destructive reality of Jews and Arabs trying to co-exist in the Middle East. Artistically, it is an innovative tapestry of images, sound and text that challenges viewers to confront their own attitudes about this volatile relationship and conflict in general.

Although set in the troubled Middle East, its narrative speaks to tribal wars that have wreaked havoc around the globe: in Ireland, in the former Yugoslavia, in Russia, in Darfur, in Zimbabwe, and elsewhere.

Here in the "multicultural" West, it is easy to slip into apathy, to feel that there is nothing one can do, nothing one needs to do to initiate change where change is due. But Souaid and Farkas believe that all artists, not only those from the affected regions, should be "engaged" in the dialogue that unfolds on the international stage.

The 15-minute video-poem included in the book is a powerful visual interpretation of the text.

About the authors

Souaid, Carolyn Marie

Carolyn Marie Souaid is a Montreal-based writer, editor and painter. She is the author of nine poetry collections and the novel, Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanasi Maqaittik, winner of the Silver Medal for Best Regional Fiction at the NYC Independent Publisher Book Awards. She has performed at literary festivals and events in Canada, Europe and the U.S., her work garnering a top prize at the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin and appearing on shortlists for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. Throughout her career, she has worked extensively to build bridges between linguistic and cultural communities in Quebec, including a decades-long involvement with the Inuit. Souaid's work has appeared in print and online journals, nationally and internationally, and has been featured on CBC-Radio. Her literary papers (1967-2022) are housed at Rare Books and Special Collections of the McLennan Library of McGill University.

Farkas, Endre

Endre Farkas was born in Hungary and is a child of Holocaust survivors. He and his parents escaped during the 1956 uprising and settled in Montreal. His work has always had a political consciousness and has always pushed the boundaries of poetry. Since the 1970s, he has collaborated with dancers, musicians and actors to move the poem from page to stage. Still at the forefront of the Quebec English language literary scene - writing, editing, publishing and performing - Farkas is the author of eleven books, including Quotidian Fever: New and Selected Poems (1974-2007). He is the two-time regional winner of the CBC Poetry "Face Off" Competition. His play, Haunted House, based on the life and work of the poet A.M. Klein, was produced in Montreal in 2009. Farkas has given readings throughout Canada, USA, Europe and Latin America. His poems have been translated into French and Spanish, Hungarian, Italian, Slovenian and Turkish.

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Reviews

The format of the presentation is precisely right. The video production, hearing the speakers and seeing them in context with each other, makes the poem live…An enclosed DVD presents the authors, Endre Farkas (Jew) and Carolyn Marie Souaid (Arab), reciting… >>

The Rover

This is not a sentimental plea for peace or brotherhood. Both tell their people's history as they see it, expressing suspicions and prejudices in accusatory tones. Ultimately, they see the error of each other's 'tribal bravado' and the cycle of… >>

Canadian Jewish News

Endre Farkas and Carolyn Marie Souaid have prepared a DVD and book that remind us that Arabs and Jews are both Semites, and that, as in the Yin and Yang symbol, each zone of interacting black or white has a… >>

— Bert Almon Montreal Review of Books

Published as a poem and video-poem on CD, Blood is Blood speaks through two voices, each placed on opposing pages with the words "Jew" and "Arab" written above each voice. These words gradually fade until they have disappeared for the… >>

— Katherine McLeod Canadian Literature


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