Blackbird showcases below the efforts of guest editors Patty Paine, Jeff Lodge, and Samia Touati and their introduction to Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Gulf Poetry from which the Gulf Poets Suite is a sampling. In addition, Nimah Ismail Nawwab, whose work appears in that forthcoming collection and in Blackbird, comments on these two projects, as well as on her own journey as a writer. These introductory essays cover a range of concerns including the religious convictions of the writers, the cultural and political implications of their practice, and the business of distributing their work to a global audience.

One Poet’s Story
Nimah Ismail Nawwab on Gathering the Tide and Blackbird’s Gulf Poet’s Suite

Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Gulf Poetry
Patty Paine, Jeff Lodge, and Samia Touati

Fowziyah Abu-Khalid
English translation by Ghassan Nasr with Joseph Heithaus
   Numerical Conjecture

Nujoom Al Ghanem
English translation by Khaled Mattawa
   Immigrant

Ashjan Al Hendi
English translation by Abdulla Al-Harrasi with Adrian Roscoe
   Grey Hair

Soad Al Kuwari
English translation by Fatima Mostafawi with Patty Paine
   The Flood

English translation by Sara Al Qatami with Patty Paine
   Modernity in the Desert

Reem Al Lawati
English translation by Issa J. Boullata
   May Love Be Praised

Ghalya Al Said
   The Car
   Malika and the Zar Dance

Abdallah Al Saikhan
English translations by Ayesha Saldanha
   The Poet
   Sword

Abdullah Al Salem
English translation by William M. Hutchins
   Emergency Meeting

Fawzia Al Sindi
English translation by Bahaa-eddin M. Mazin with Patty Paine
   from Less Than Ink

Khalid Albudoor
   All That We Have

Mohammad Almoghrabi
English translation by Khaled Al-Masri
   The Mural of Arrogance

Souad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah
English translations by Abdul-Wahid Lu’Lu’Ah
   Female 2000
   Ingratitude

Qassim Haddad
English translations by Khaled Mattawa
   Stone
   Words from a Young Night

Adel Khozam
English translation by Joseph T. Zeidan
   White Shame

Saadia Mufarreh
English translation by Hend Mubarek Aleidan with Patty Paine
   Soon She Will Leave

Nimah Ismail Nawwab
   Freedom Writers
   Illusions and Realities