Identity Card
بطاقة هوية
Darwish's most famous early poem turned an ID number into defiance: its refrain 'Record! I am an Arab' made the young poet famous overnight and remains one of the most quoted lines in modern Arabic poetry.
سجّل أنا عربي
Write down! I am an Arab And my identity card number is fifty thousand I have eight children
(excerpt)
About this poem
“Identity Card” (Bitaqat Hawiyya) appeared in Darwish’s 1964 collection Awraq al-Zaytoun (Leaves of Olives). Its opening address to an Israeli official — a demand to be recorded as Arab, with a name and a number — made Darwish famous across the Arab world, and he was repeatedly imprisoned and placed under house arrest by the Israeli authorities through the 1960s.
The poem has been translated into English many times; the excerpt above follows a widely circulated translation. Its closing challenge — “Beware of my hunger and my anger” — is among the most recognized lines of resistance poetry in Arabic.