This volume offers selections of ninety-four leading poets, dramatists, and short story writers, with selections from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Kuwait.

Two sprigs of basil / Khadija al-Amri -- Complaint / Fahd al-Askar -- The prologue / Abd al-Kareem al-Auda -- Figs and sycamore ; Time's spindle / Muhammad Hasan Awwad -- The road's bend ; I search sorrow ... happiness conceals you / Abd al-Ilah al-Babtain -- End of death ; The kindness of the enemy ; Between two voids ; Between the knife and the killer ; Answers to one question ; Treachery of words ; Longing / Abdallah al-Baraduni -- They ask you / Ali Al-Dumaini -- Cedar and olives / Muhammad al-Dumaini -- Identity card ; A favorite habit / Abd al-Rahman Fakhri -- From The myth of immortality / Muhammad Hasan Faqi -- Zero ; A sailor's memoirs (Excerpts from The first memoir) ; A sailor's memoirs (Excerpts from The twentieth memoir) / Muhammad al-Fayiz -- Doubts ; Love's wounds ; Reproach / Abdallah al-Faysal -- Being ; Women ; A pony for the tribe ; Clouds / Sulaiman al-Fulayyih -- Love and black harbors ; Little thoughts ; Song in a tropical night ; Your loving / Ghazi al-Gosaibi -- The sea has its transformations ... make way ; Dominion ; The children ; Two lines ; I do not bow ; Happily he entered death ; The rider / Qasim Haddad -- Fountain ; Beauty ; The streets of Rome / Ibrahim al-Hadrani. Drinking from her eyes ; Hufuf / Muhammad Jabr al-Harbi -- Bedouin lament at the gates of the equator / Muhammad Ubaid al-Harbi -- A poet's confession ; What is left for me? / Saad al-Humaidin -- On the road to Jerusalem / Abd al-Rahman Ibrahim -- Rebellion / Muhammad Fahd al-Issa -- The bursting out of summer / Abdallah Muhammad Jabr -- Space and the goblet ; Trivialities / Muhammad Saeed Jarada -- Identity for a prophetic body / Junaid Muhammad Junaid -- Poem ; Departure ; A pearl ; Distances of longing ; My friends ; Butterflies ; My grandfather attends the general assembly / Fawziyya Abu Khalid -- The lost mirage ; My mother's grave ; The deserted valley / Ahmad Muhammad Al Khalifa -- A window for longing ; Sorrow of Laila : Tuful / Ali Abdallah Khalifa -- Schizophrenia ; Don't ; A truth ; Happy New Year! ; Love poems in times of war ; In my ribs the orchard grows ; The poet dies / Dhabya Khamees -- Very much alone ; About love and the impossible / Hamda Khamees -- The book of dream and revolution ; Creating words between two ages / Hasan al-Lawzi -- Lament ; Beirut, Tel al-Zaatar, night and bullets ; From Yemeni thoughts / Abd al-Aziz al-Maqalih -- Death in life ; The poet and the moth / Ahmad Qandeel -- Cycle / Maysun Saqr al-Qasimi -- A poet's prayer ; The fleeing phantoms of humiliation ; The altar of love / Hasan Abdallah al-Qurashi -- Voice and echo / Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Rafee. Blooming tree of suicide ; A pencil and a noose ; Far, far away ... over the hills of the corpse / Sayf al-Rahabi -- The exile's return / Muhammad Hashim Rasheed -- The need for a second heaven and an additional hell / Abd al-Kareem al-Razihi -- A new definition of the third world ; A thousand times more beautiful ; A convenant ; Sojourn forever ; Free harbour ; You alone / Suad al-Mubarak al-Sabah -- Regret / Ali al-Sabti -- Dismounting from the dream-saddle ; Fiddah learns to draw / Abdallah al-Saikhan -- How fear dies / Ahmad Salih al-Salih -- The sniper / Habeeb al-Sayigh -- Dancing before the queen ; The body, the joy / Shawqi Shafeeq -- Blind minutes ; Defeat / Ahmad al-Shami -- Presence ; What keeps the innocent wakeful? ; Warmth of the blood / Ali al-Sharqawi -- Night and the poet / Hamza Shihata -- From the road / Muhammad al-Shurafi -- On time ; The last worm / Husain Sirha -- A page from a Bedouin notebook ; I spelled out dream I spelled out illusion / Muhammad al-Thubaiti -- The year that has ended ; Waiting ; A tale ; Song of departure / Ahmad al-Mushari al-Udwani -- Why ; Fragrance / Ibrahim al-Urayyid -- Sterility / Abdu Uthman -- Prayer to the beloved ; Presence in the sacrificial alphabet / Ismail al-Warith. Tattered sails ; Estrangement / Khalifa al-Wugayyan -- At the door ; Coquetry / Tahir Zamakhshari -- My son ; The stranger / Khalid Saud al-Zayd -- Moments of illumination / Muhammad Mahmoud al-Zubairi -- The Hazeen was singing / Muhammad Abd al-Malik -- What came between Aneesa and me / Mayfaʻ Abd al-Rahman -- Abu Rubbiya ; Brother, pay up and get out! / Muhammad Abd al-Wali -- The palm trees said to the sea ... ; Khlalah SEL / Abd al-Hameed Ahmad -- The bridge ; Love and rain / Muhammad Alwan -- The elevator / Abd al-Qadir Aqeel -- The succession / Saeed Aulaqi -- Dancing by the light of the moon / Salih Saeed Ba-Amer -- The lake of nothingness / Fawziyya al-Bakr -- From Saqifat al-Safa / Hamza Bogary -- The journey / Zaid Muteeʻ Dammaj -- Scattered voices ; The storm / Khalil al-Fuzayʻ -- An ordinary death / Muhammad Hasan al-Harbi -- A man of no consequence / Kamal Haydar -- The imprint of blackness / Muhammada Salih Haydara -- The nightingale's triptych / Mansour al-Hazimi -- The arrival ; The song of the hunted man / Husain Ali Husain -- 4+1=1 / Ismail Fahd Ismail -- The bird / Abdallah Ali Khalifa -- Why Fattoum al-Ward hit her neighbour / Muhammad al-Murr -- The kiosk / Muhamma al-Muthanna -- Disappointment / Ibrahim al-Nasir -- The final ring / Abd al-Majeed al-Qadi. Drip drip / Waleed al-Rujaib -- The butterflies / Amin Salih -- The bridge ; Summer and ashes / Abdallah al-Salmi -- Coal and cash / Khayriyya al-Saqqaf -- Waiting / Muhammad Saeed Sayf -- The staircase / Ali Sayyar -- The dream / Ruqayya al-Shabeeb -- A secret and a death / Sharifa al-Shamlan -- The voices of night / Sulaiman al-Shatti -- Aunti Kadarjan / Ahmad al-Sibaʻi -- Pullng up roots / Layla al-Uthman -- Silence and the walls / Sibaʻi Ahmad Uthman -- The mud (a play) / Saqr al-Rushud.