UM: Poet

The Detroit Free Press reports that UM professor Khaled Mattawa has been awarded a prestigious $50,000 grant as a 2010 United States Artists Fellow. This year alone, the poet has celebrated the publication of his own book and a translation of Arabic poetry. While he is hailed as a preeminent scholar in translating Arabic poetry, the Libyan-born professor has also been recognized as a poet in his own right. Mattawa tells the Freep: “As much as being between cultures is a kind of rupture, it also teaches you to be more attentive to difference. You’re more patient with difference and more appreciative of it. Being between cultures is like a churn and points to what your essence as an individual is.” [Source]