Dunya Mikhail Talks Mythology, Translating Her Own Poetry, and Exploring the Past Through Objects

Lit Hub is excited to feature another entry from Poets.org’s “enjambments,” a monthly interview series with new and established poets. This month, they spoke to Dunya Mikhail. Dunya Mikhail is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Tablets: Secrets of the Clay (New Directions, 2024). She has been awarded the Arab American Book Award for Poetry, the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture, and the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. Mikhail lives in Michigan, where she is a lecturer of Arabic at Oakland University.

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Poets.org: So much of Tablets is rooted in mythology, as evidenced particularly by the collection’s allusions to the stories of Gilgamesh, Rapunzel, and Cinderella. What is the influence of mythology on your work as a poet, and how might poetry be its own form of mythmaking?

Dunya Mikhail: In many ways, poetry itself is an act of mythmaking, a form of alchemy that transforms reality into something timeless, allowing us to revisit and reshape our own truths. Mythology is a living presence in my poetry, a dynamic framework through which I explore universal emotions and struggles that continue to resonate in contemporary life.

The first stories and folk tales I heard were narrated by my grandmother. We would lie on the roof of our home in Baghdad, under the open sky, as she shared these tales with me. Those nights were my first encounters with literature; and the stories, rich with personal and collective wisdom, etched themselves into my soul. They shaped how I see the world and craft my words.

Through poetry, the myths of old are reborn, carrying the weight of history while illuminating the complexities of modern life.

Poets.org: In the Author’s Note, you say there are at least two layers of translation in Tablets: “the first from words in one language, Arabic, to another, English; and the second from words to images.” As a translator yourself, could you talk about the difference between translating your own work and that of another author?

DM: Translating my own work gives me a wider space to understand it more deeply and to diagnose its flaws. I see it as a second writing rather than translation.

A dialogue happens between the Arabic and English versions of the text. Like true lovers, they evolve together without imposing too much on each other.

Translating someone else’s work, on the other hand, feels like stepping into another world—a world crafted by a voice and vision that are not my own. The responsibility becomes about listening carefully to their intent, preserving their tone and emotion, while finding the right expression in a different language.

In both cases, translation is about more than words; it’s about capturing the spirit of the original and conveying it in a way that resonates just as deeply in the new language.

Poets.org: The poems in “Tablets I” depict connections and missed connections as well as the ways in which technology both brings us closer, even “ignit[ing] revolutions,” and widens the distances between us. The conciseness of these poems is akin to that of the instant messages that you mention in No. 21.

What led to your choice to maintain such brevity in these poems, though each one tells a unique story?

DM: In Tablets, the brevity mirrors the fragmentation of our modern existence—where messages are instant, moments fleeting, and communication is often reduced to its barest essentials. Each poem is a tablet, a fragment of a larger mosaic, and this fragmentary nature reflects the way we experience connection and disconnection in our lives.

As an Iraqi, I witnessed how my people, driven by the unrelenting wars, were forced to scatter across the world, like billiard balls struck by a powerful blow. “Tablets I, No. 21,” which you mentioned, was written in response to witnessing a group of young, liberal Iraqis demand a homeland. They sent instant messages to each other, sharing dreams of freedom, and took to the streets in protest, holding posters that read, “We want a homeland.”

Just as an instant message can ignite a revolution, so too can a brief poem spark an entire world of meaning.

Poets.org: The numbered stanzas look at ordinary objects and beings with a refracted lens that show the reader a new, even magical perspective. Often, daily practical objects, like ceramic bowls, appear in both ancient and contemporary art. You reference Sumerian cuneiform tablets as an inspiration for this collection.

Can you speak to the material quality of these poems and what helped you find a new perspective on ordinary objects?

DM: For me, these objects are far more than mere physical items; they are symbols that carry memory, history, and meaning. The poems in Tablets are an attempt to reconnect with that sense of materiality to explore how the past and present coexist within the objects we encounter in our everyday lives. I wanted to delve into that duality—the way something as seemingly simple as a ceramic bowl or a clay tablet can hold extraordinary significance.

By looking at these objects through a refracted lens, I aimed to uncover their stories, to connect them to the broader human experience. Each object, in its quiet presence, speaks of lives lived, of hands that shaped them, and of the continuous thread of existence that links us all.

Poets.org: What are you currently reading?

I am currently reading Signs, Music by Raymond Antrobus.

Poets.org: What are your favorite poems on Poets.org?

DM: It’s hard to collect all the poems I’ve been enjoying all these years, but Ilya Kaminsky’s “We Lived Happily During the War” is one that has stayed in my mind.

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“enjambments,” a monthly interview series produced by the Academy of American Poets, will highlight an emerging or established poet who has recently published a poetry collection. Each interview, along with poems from the poet’s new book, and a reading by the poet, will be published on Poets.org and shared in the Academy’s weekly newsletter.