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- Country of residence: Portugal
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is a Palestinian poet, born in the town of As-Samu' in the Hebron Governorate in 1959.
He completed his secondary education in Hebron and was arrested several times while a student there. He enrolled at the University of Jordan to study at the Faculty of Arts, but was arrested in his second year and imprisoned in solitary confinement for three months. He was then expelled from the university for a year before returning. He graduated from the Department of Arabic Language in 1982.
He began publishing his poems in the cultural supplement of the Al-Dustour newspaper in the early 1980s while still a student, and published his first poetry collection, "Shaghab" (Rebellion), in 1988 in Amman. He was banned from traveling and working until the era of democracy began in Jordan, after which he joined the staff of Al-Sha'ab newspaper, then Al-Dustour, and later worked as managing editor of Al-Arab Al-Yawm newspaper. He currently serves as managing editor of the cultural section of the Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustour.
His work, "Shaghab
," was his first poetry collection, published in 1988.
In 1998, he published his second poetry collection, "Tazdidun Samaa wa Basatin" (You Increase in Sky and Orchards), which consists of love poems.
He then published his third poetry collection, *My Higher Tree* (1999, published by the Arab Institute for Studies and Publishing in Beirut), which drew the ire of Islamic extremists who called for his death. The collection was subsequently confiscated by the Jordanian Ministry of Information in March 2000, and he was brought before the Sharia court on May 5th of the same year. He was tried five times in the Sharia courts, with the Court of Appeals refusing to dismiss the case. When the Sharia courts finally concluded their proceedings in late 2001, the Ministry of Information, represented by the Department of Publications and Publishing, filed a new case against him. Several months later, at the end of July 2002, the court acquitted him of charges of blasphemy and violating the Press Law. However, the Attorney General appealed the verdict.
He was sentenced to three months in prison by the Amman Criminal Court for violating the Press Law with his renowned book, *My Higher Tree*, which was, of course, confiscated in Jordan.
His fourth poetry collection, *The Travels of Moses: The Last Testament*, was published by the Arab Institute for Studies and Publishing after the Department of Publications removed many poems and poetic passages.
In 2004, he published his fifth poetry collection, "From the Sea," with the Arab Institute for Studies and Publishing in Beirut.
In 2007, his sixth poetry collection, "My Lineage is the Wind, My Address is the Rain," was published by Dar Al-Shorouk. This collection includes the poem that won two French awards in 2006: the Oriani Cultural Foundation Prize in Nancy and the Lablome Prize from the Terranova Poetry Festival.
In 2010, the General Egyptian Book Organization in Cairo published a selection of his poems, "My Lineage is the Wind, My Address is the Rain, and Other Poems," as part of its "Arab Creativity" series.
"The Dead Drag the Sky" was published by Arabesque Publishing House in Cairo in 2011, and the Egyptian General Book Organization reprinted the same collection in 2012.
A second edition of "The Dead Drag the Sky" was published by the Egyptian General Book Organization in Egypt in 2012 as part of its "Arab Creativity" series. A
third edition of "My Lineage is the Wind" was published by the Family Library Project of the Ministry of Culture in Amman in 2013. "
A Body for the Sea, a Garment for the Poem" was published by Noon Publishing House in the UAE in 2015.
Master's thesis on his poetry
*A master's thesis on his poetry submitted by the Iraqi student Abdul Khaliq Farhan Ali Al-Khatouni entitled The Artistic Structures in the Poetry of Musa Hawamdeh at the University of Mosul in 2013 AD.
Awards: - Jordanian Writers Association Award for Non-Members in 1982 for the poem "Gaps." - "La Plume" (The Feather) Grand Prix, awarded by the French Oriani Foundation in 2006, and the Terranova Festival Award. - Australian Immigrant Poetry Award in 2011.
- Member of the Jordanian Writers Association, Member of the Arab Writers Union, Member of the Jordanian Journalists Syndicate, Member of the Administrative Board of the Arab Internet Writers Union. He has participated in several Arab and European poetry festivals. His poems have been translated into several languages, including Persian, English, French, German, Swedish, Romanian, Kurdish, Bosnian, and Turkish. The Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet has published a number of his translated poems. He was also one of the poets included in the anthology of Palestinian poetry and the anthology of Arabic love poetry in Turkish, and one of the Arab poets featured in the book "Two Dates for Sunrise and Two Musicians," which was published in Persian in a translation by the Iranian poet Musa Bidaj. Many Arab critics and writers have written about his poetry, including: the late poet Buland al-Haydari, Dr. Salah Fadl, Tarad al-Kubaisi, Muhammad Ali Shams al-Din, Rasim al-Madhoun, Ali Badr, Dr. Sultan al-Maani, Dr. Muhammad Ubaidullah, Hikmat al-Nawaisah, Dr. Muhammad al-Qawasmeh, Dr. Abeer Salameh, Jaafar Hassan, Naeem Araidi, Khaled Zaghrit, Rashid Issa, Fakhri Saleh, Youssef Youssef, Muhammad al-Ashri, Zuhair Kazem Abboud, Makki al-Rubaie, Abdul Aoun al-Rawdan, Miqdad Masoud, Muayyad al-Bassam, Hani Ashour, Omar Gharab, Ali Safar, Ihab Khalifa, Omar Shahriar, Magdi Mamdouh, Dr. Linda Ubaid, Dr. Abdul Rahim al-Marashdeh, and Muhammad al-Qasim. Eliasiri, Wajdan Al-Sayegh, Jalal Barjas, Nidal Al-Qasim, Dr. Diana Arheil, and others.
Director Nasser Omar made a feature film about his poetic experience as part of the program "These Others," which aired on Orbit TV and other satellite channels.
He has three books of prose in the genre of satirical literature, including "Tales of Samou'" (2000, published by Dar Al-Shorouk in Ramallah and Amman). Laila Al-Ta'i translated Milton's work for the English-language magazine Banipal in its latest issue dedicated to modern Palestinian literature.
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