palestine

The Power of Culture and Narrative: An Interview with Susan Muaddi Darraj by Lena Mahmoud

The writing community is a small one, and the Arab American writing community even smaller. I believe in being a good “literary citizen,” in helping to support and promote other writers.

In the following interview, Lena Mahmoud interviews Susan Muaddi Darraj, renowned Palestinian American fiction writer, about the impact of social media in cultural movements, the importance of contributing to an active literary community, and the rewards and challenges she has experienced writing her new children’s book series Farah Rocks.

LM: In 2019 you started the #TweetYourThobe to honor Rashida Tlaib’s swearing-in. Its popularity inspired the International Day of Tatreez and Palestinian Culture. Did you think that the #TweetYourThobe would have such a far reach? What are your hopes for the International Day of Tatreez and Palestinian Culture?

SMD: I wasn’t completely surprised that #TweetYourThobe went viral, because we had support building “underground” in a private Facebook group for a couple of weeks. (It was private because when I first floated the idea on Twitter to wear thobes on the day of the swearing in, I got some intense hate mail). The idea grew and grew, with people inviting their friends. I knew that Palestinians and our friends would enjoy posting pictures of themselves in thobes and other forms of tatreez (embroidery) — and I was excited by everyone’s enthusiasm. I initially invited only 300, but by January 3rd, we had 8,000 members.

I think what did surprise me was the media reaction — it was overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic. By mid-morning on January 3rd, my friends at the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) were funneling media inquiries my way. By noon that day, NPR and The New York Times called me within minutes of each other, and that was when I understood the impact #TweetYourThobe was making. And then CNN and others — and each major story spurred further interest in the topic. By January 4th, the second day (our campaign lasted 3 days), there were newspapers in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East covering it.

I was most affected by how meaningful the event was for Palestinian Americans. Finally, a chance to take charge of the narrative in the news headlines! It was refreshing. That’s why we are starting the International Day of Tatreez and Palestinian Culture — I’m partnering with the newly established Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington DC to do online and local, face-to-face celebrations of Palestinian culture every April 30th. We’re using the hashtags #TweetYourThobe, #TweetYourTatreez, and #TweetYourCulture.

LM: Your first two fiction books were literary short story collections, but your upcoming release, Farah Rocks, is the first book of a middle grade chapter book series. Was the transition from literary short fiction to middle grade fiction a difficult one? What inspired Farah Rocks? How many books do you have in mind for the series?

SMD: Well, I have a four-book contract with Capstone Books, and there’s a possibility of writing more if the book does well. I was inspired to write it by my daughter — she’s an avid reader and she asked me one day why there weren’t books with Arab or Palestinian girls in them. I realized I had wondered the same exact thing at her age. I loved books like Pippi Longstocking and Anne of Green Gables, later I got into Nancy Drew and even the Sweet Valley High books. But I never saw even minor characters who reflected my own life. That’s two generations of Arab American girls asking the same question, right? Where am I? How come nobody sees me? How come I don’t see myself in the books I love?

So I was like, “That’s enough of that.” I approached my agent with the idea. He doesn’t really represent children’s fiction, but he liked the idea and supported it. He told me to write the first two books in the series, and when I did — it took me about six months — he went out to publishers with them. And he negotiated a four-book deal, which is great, because it will be a substantial series.

Farah is a fifth grader who is very smart, brave, and funny. She has a fun little brother named Samir, a mother who is very patient, and a father who is hilarious and likes to make breakfast foods for dinner. They are a working-class family, and so they struggle with money. In the first book, Farah has to confront a new girl at school who turns out to be a terrible bully.

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Writing for this age group — 2nd to 5th graders — has been a challenge in some ways. I read books for this age group all the time, because I have three children of my own and they are all, thank goodness, voracious readers. But making the switch has been a humbling experience. I have a treasure of an editor in Eliza Leahy at Capstone — she has really taught me how to avoid being too nuanced, too subtle, how to keep the plot moving, and how to make sure the reader is always tapped into Farah’s feelings and thoughts.

LM: In addition to your books, you have been very active in the literary community, including hosting workshops for both RAWI and Barrelhouse. How do you think those two roles complement one another?

SMD: The writing community is a small one, and the Arab American writing community even smaller. I believe in being a good “literary citizen,” in helping to support and promote other writers. I’ve been a literary journal editor — I edited the Baltimore Review for seven years — and I’ve been active with Barrelhouse Magazine for several years as well. I’ve also helped organize a successful creative writing conference in Washington DC every spring — Conversations & Connections (www.writersconnectconference.com) for the last thirteen years. In fact, it was just named one of America’s best writing conferences by The Writer magazine. I think the appeal of this conference is that we have a “no divas” rule — we invite only writers and presenters who have a generous attitude towards helping others learn the craft and the intricacies of the publishing world.

So all that is to say that I believe in supporting other writers as much as possible. I know that I have had other writers who mentored me when I got started — and I’m grateful to writer friends who blurb my books, who invite me for readings or to serve on panels, who spread the word about my work. Again, if you want to be part of this community of writers, you have to not only care about the written word, but you have to support those who write, edit, illustrate, publish.

LM: You were recently named a Ford Fellow, which comes with a $50,000 purse. Congratulations! How important do you believe awards and funding are for a successful writing career?

SMD: I was thrilled to be recognized by United States Artists, which awarded me the Ford Fellowship. That was quite meaningful because I was invited to the ceremony in Chicago, where I met so many wonderful writers (Lucas Mann, Fred Moten, Molly Brown) and artists working in other disciplines, like musician Terence Blanchard and vocalist Somi. It was a tremendous three days of sharing our work with each other and talking about the creative process. So it’s not the award itself so much as the network it provides you, the company it places you in, that I value.

But of course, there’s no denying that awards can help your career in more tangible ways — having a book award sticker on your book cover certainly helps people pay attention.

Funding is also crucial, especially for those of us who work full-time and for whom writing is something we accomplish “on the side.” I have a full-time job and I’m raising three children, and I wake up early (sometimes at 4:30am) to write for a couple of hours before I start the rest of the day. Having funding is great because it allowed me last year and this year to take some time away and provide childcare while I was gone so that I could focus on my work.

LM: The writing advice that you provide during your workshops has been highly regarded. What is the most important bit of writing advice for other writers?

SMD: Care about your characters. Know them. Understand their flaws. View them with a critical eye. Figure out what they love, what they want. What scares them? The whole book unfolds from their desires and their fears.

Dust

by Lana Habash

Stone streets of an old city,
carts lined with rings of fresh bread,
seeded sesame, the scent
of coffee mixed with zalabieh,
where songs of prayer mark time–
here, the hand of God is pressed
in stone. Touch your hand there
palm to palm,
and time will pass
through your fingers,
more enduring than belief. Uniformed men
set against the sky, the dawn
ignores them. A young boy stands,
circled by men, guns
slung over shoulders
like shopping bags. The boy
leans back, delivers the blow,
runs. He knows where and how.
And like the Sea the merchants part,
then rushing back,
one current now, an old man slows
the push of his cart, a woman
slows too and smiles.

***

Stories We Tell

How Haja stood at the door,
hands raised to her son
Don’t come in
with those.
How he took
the grenades
from each pocket
as if they were lemons,
with a smile that said,
There’s no need for all that.
Or how the khuwana
stopped our men,
bent over the road,
the last pieces of home
on their backs,
how the men
lifted their heads
to ask Did you sell it
furnished?

Or how the checkpoint soldier
questioned the farmer
What do you
feed your chickens?
day after day,
then turned him back
for the wrong answer.
How finally the farmer
said with a shrug,
I give them money.
They decide for themselves.

Or the young boys loaded
on an army truck,
set free
by pleading hands,
women
who cry My son!
and tear their hair.
How the women took
the puzzled faces
to their own,
saying, Go to your own home now,
child.

How on the morning
of tawjihi,
the schoolboy
arrived early,
stopped at the designated
knot on the string,
threw down his books,
took off his shirt,
to demand
that the beating
be quick.

Or how the teacher,
now the line
that won’t
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laughed
as she picked up the stone,

The land
knows
who loves it.

***

Stories We Don’t

Women who carry life
give birth to the dead
at the waiting points
on the open road.

An olive tree on its side,
gnarled fingers reach to the sky,

land is not place.

Of course there was the house
lost,
child loaded
onto a garbage truck,
eyes toward home,
eyes always toward home,
and of course there were those
not so lucky as that,
who died on the long walk,

and of course for the living
the attic came next,
the cold floor,
the seven bodies.
Yes, there were tents, walls, stone,
perhaps a house,
and the names our children bear:
Jaffa
Haifa
Beisan
Jenin,

what a people must swallow:
the hollows of a culture not ours,
the land wet with blood
of others like us
thrown into
the singular
strangeness
of exile,
the thirty years it took
to see their shadows
on every Washington and Main,
this land of ghosts,
the outlines of a brother here,
a sister there,
their eyes, accusing
their eyes, the future.

Maybe regret is passed on
to daughters.
We carry it with us,
pieces of home
on our backs,
one camp to another,
waiting.

And yes,
we remember, still see
her, sister, bearing life,
as she begged for maya
on the dusty road, see her stumble
on the stones,
push herself
up,
bearing life,
stumble again,
till finally
she lay still,
the dust
from the road
mixed with her hair
and dry lips
bearing life–

dust
means something different
to us.

Two poems by fargo tbakhi

how to miss a place you’ve never been (diaspora blues)

talk to your father. listen to the anger beneath his words.

listen to him miss a place he’s never been.
learn: this is what it sounds like.

read about the bodies in the place you’ve never been.

read their joy and the way
they try to walk like free people
through borders between the streets,
walls through the aching chambers of their hearts.
feel the borders in your streets. feel the walls inside your heart.

eat a piece of baklava. taste every flake of honey,

feel every nut between your teeth,
fitting in the cracks,
surviving between mountains of bone.
taste the layers.
this is what it tastes like to be in the place you’ve never been.

name it.

keep naming it,
and as you keep naming it make it more specific.
shrink it.
pinpoint.
name it: palestine.
name it: hebron in colonized, al khalil in truth.
name it: that building on that street.
name it: home.

learn the language of the place you’ve never been.

taste the words on your tongue.
do they taste like honey?
do they taste like baklava?
are they stuck between your teeth?
do they taste like anger?
do they taste like home?
min wen inta?
inta min palestine?
min wen inta:
where
are you from?

don’t try.

you don’t
have to.
you will feel it.
you will have felt it your whole life
that something is missing,
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that you are renting,
that you will never be able to buy.
that the ache in your chest has a name-
name it.
name it palestine.
name it al khalil.
name it that building on that street,
name it that smile on that face,
name it that word from that tongue,
name it that dirt on your tongue,
name it that feeling in that heart,
name it your heart.
name it your place.
name it home.

palestinian morning after

in desert sunlight even brown boys feel divine. even, yes,
with olive pits between our teeth.
yes, even as my fingers believe they must be roots.
geography makes historians of our feet; in the morning,
i will remove the blanket from my legs and slip
quietly away. as i do. as we do.
where does my body go when i’m asleep? perhaps it flies
across the world, can linger anywhere it likes: perhaps the air
contains no checkpoints. perhaps the air contains no roadblocks.
even, yes, my grandfather’s home. yes, even
the absence we call motherland. even every village and every
uncultivated grove. even the negative space we call country.
the soles of my feet make poor historians.
they cannot seem to learn
the proper names to call the ground they kiss.
even, yes, as skies are orange. even as sunlight
leaches away like
melting ice. yes even as it dwindles.
this impossible unity, delicate
as varicose veins, delicate as a peace accord. it is your breath,
sweet, filling my ear. it is

a miracle,
this belonging i find in my secret morning.
slipping quietly away, stepping outside to the clouds parting
this sudden feeling of sunlight on my skin,
this feeling of being
divine.

Terrorism by Gabrielle Spear

“isn’t all of this ugly though?” i say to the young israeli vet || i know he has risked nearly everything to break silences || but i’m skeptical he will ever stop occupying || he speaks of settlers as if he not one himself || of the military as if they have not been carving green lines through palestinians all along || we are looking down upon the nets over the marketplace in hebron || where jewish settlers throw trash and rocks and their own shit || onto the heads of palestinians || and besides the voice of our tour guide || the only noise to be heard across the village || are jewish cars moving down shuhada street || the only bodies free || are stray dogs

words i must tell you || do not have the same meanings here || al-khalil is hebron || shubbaak is a prison || sayyaara is a vehicle for apartheid || kalb is an animal with more freedom than palestinians || shaari’ is a walk of shame || souk is a dump for your enemy’s shit || and out the mouth of a palestinian with a thick accent || the english word “tourist” || sounds like the word “terrorist” || and “terrorist” like the word || “tourist”

“don’t the settlers want to live in a beautiful place? || why live here at all || if it’s not beautiful?” i ask || i can see our tour guide is confused || my questions come out stupid, obvious || “the security makes the settlers feel protected,” he says || maybe for the tenth time || and gestures to the windows that palestinians || must live inside to make their colonizers || feel comfortable on a car ride down shuhada street || but —that’s not what i’m asking

i want to understand how can you can live so incubated || you don’t even see the walls || and barbed wire || and shit in your line of vision || at what point do the walls fold back || melt into your landscape || your own geography || that your body itself || becomes a wall too

at the end of the tour || the former soldiers take us to meet issa amro || how gracious and kind of them || finally letting a palestinian speak for himself || issa shows us the only weapon he has ever owned || language || i have already told you || words are different here || from the ears of a settler || issa’s weapon is more violent than a bomb || he believes in a different world || and when this one passes || as he assures us it eventually will || words will be restored to their rightful meanings:

al-khalil will be a thriving city that once survived the worst of apartheid

shubbaak will be a portal to palestine
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sayyaara will take its owner on road trips through freedom

kalb will be a dog, just a dog, and not a name for an arab

shaari’ will breathe the memories of martyrs long gone

souk will smell like home again

we board the tour bus out of hebron || and i leave feeling self-righteous || my weapon of choice is poetry after all || i will never search for words through the barrel of a gun

yet || how quickly i forget that || on this land || poetry makes a terrorist out of me too

Sukoon Interviews Lilas Taha author of Bitter Almonds

Rewa Zeinati: Lilas Taha, congratulations on winning the 2017 International Book Awards for your book entitled Bitter Almonds, published by Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press. Tell us a little about the process of starting the idea for this book, up until the moment it was published and then nominated for an award.

Lilas Taha: Thank you for the opportunity to talk about my book and writing journey.

As a child of a Palestinian refugee father, I always wanted to tell the story of what happened to his generation—scream it out loud, if I could. Anger and frustration at the injustice of it all accompanied me through the years, much like most Palestinians who grew up watching their parent(s) try to move forward, while clinging to a land—a world—often described as perfect or magical, yet unreachable. Living in exile, my father carried his Palestine in his heart and managed to plant its seeds in mine and my brother’s. Hope flourished, and I arrived to adulthood determined to do the same for my children.

On my father’s last visit to me in the US, however, I saw something different in his eyes, a lack of luster, something was missing. After being displaced three times in his life, hope deserted him. That realization hit me very hard, and I struggled to engage him, to bring him back from the brink of despair. It pained me to see him that way; knowing he would not return to his beloved Palestine. So I started writing about his familiar world, involving him in discussions and challenging him to express more, talk more, remember more. Our daily sessions, when I read to him what I’ve written the night before, became our time together. We argued a lot, stepped into dangerous emotional zones often, and sometimes, we sailed into happy places. I wanted to create characters he could connect to and care about, and describe events as he and others in his generation experienced them, not as history books recorded them. That was my goal, and that’s how Bitter Almonds was born.

It took me a year to write the story and I was on my final edits when a lady, who had read my first book Shadows of Damascus, attended a writer’s event in Kuwait and mentioned my work to one of the editors present. At the time, Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press was under the umbrella of Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishers. The editor got in touch with me, and I sent her my manuscript for Bitter Almonds. A publication contract followed. The book was released world-wide, translated into the Norwegian language, and will come out in Arabic translation January, 2018.

Being nominated for, and winning, the 2017 International Book Awards in the Multicultural Fiction category provides wonderful exposure and is definitely the icing on the cake.

RZ: Your novel is thematically, among other things, about displacement and exile. How do these themes tie into your own life and experiences?

LT: I grew up in Kuwait among a mix of Arab nationalities. I spent most summer vacations in Syria with my mother’s family and my father’s relatives who settled there after their removal from Palestine in 1948. I was fortunate to absorb all cultures, but there was always a sense of being in transition, functioning in temporary mode: living in one place where my parents worked (Kuwait), visiting another where most members of my family lived (Syria), and yearning for a land I never experienced (Palestine).

With the Gulf War, I lost the patch of stability I was floating on. Through difficult circumstances, I ended up in a new land (US) speaking a different language. I pursued my studies, married a wonderful man—a Palestinian—and tried to build a secure future and a family. Eventually, my parents joined me, but by then, they had to resettle again (Jordan). And after the war in Syria erupted, some members of my mother’s family also became refugees. So displacement and exile were persistent companions in my life.

RZ: You are an electrical engineer by training and you mention that creative writing is your passion. Why didn’t you pursue this passion earlier on?

LT: Ever since I was a child, I’ve written short stories and personal reflections, but always in Arabic, and I never really entertained the idea of publication. I kept it as a hobby as I earned my engineering degrees and raised a family. Writing took me to my comfort zone, a respite from the stresses of life, and it stayed as a personal escape tool.

When the sad events started unraveling in Syria in 2011, the uncertainty and worry about my relatives frustrated me to the point that I started writing a story to reflect my emotional upheaval, but I used the English language for the first time. With persistent support from my husband and friends, I joined a writer’s guild and read parts of the story to the mix of writers. Their feedback was surprisingly positive, which encouraged me to keep writing in English and, a year later, I had a published novel. Bitter Almonds came next accompanied by my desire to join writers who shine a light on the Palestinian struggle and other issues pertaining to the Middle East for readers in the west.

I can’t see myself not writing. In an irrational way, I think of myself a girl hugging her security blanket. I hope to be able to stay on this writing track, perhaps publishing original works in Arabic, too.

RZ: What was/is the most terrifying part about your writing journey? Its beginning, or now? Or both?

LT: I don’t think it is the beginning. When I started this journey, I really had no clue what the writing and publishing worlds are like. Don’t they say ignorance is a bliss? I can relate to that. I just pushed forward, learning as I go, and the more information I gathered, the more aware I became of how rocky this path is. After all the hard work I pour into a book—my baby—I let go of it for readers to judge and criticize. There are no training wheels to gradually lift from its bike, no kindergarten to slowly remove it from my care. Once my book is released, the baby suddenly becomes an adult.

Therefore, I’m in constant learning mode. I want to produce a better product, a higher quality book, a more expressive novel. I don’t believe there’s an end of a road for a writer. There’s no ultimate goal to reach. That in itself brings me to the terrified state.

RZ: Your book is dedicated to the loving memory of your father. Tell us a little more about that.

LT: I’ve explained how I started writing Bitter Almonds to engage my father. Sadly, he passed away about three weeks before I signed the publishing contract, so he never really knew I got the story out. But I believe he is smiling at me from his special place up above, perhaps with a new twinkle in his eye.

RZ: You’ve moved around a lot while growing up. What or where is ‘home’ to you?

LT: Although I have many places where I feel at home, in my mind and heart, the absolute definition of home has always been Palestine, a place I had only heard and read about growing up, but didn’t have the chance to see until fairly recently as an adult. Palestine holds a powerful grip on my emotions and imagination.

My Arabic dialect is colored by my mother’s Syrian accent, and sometimes I surprise people when I passionately talk Palestinian, even have my sincerity brushed aside because of it. That infuriates me. The feeling of being Palestinian has been talked about in so many ways, and written in plenty of poetry, wonderful books and articles. Yet, I think it’s an indescribable state of existence. All we can do is hold on to it, try to creatively express it, and pass it on to the next generation.

Just as my mother instilled in me her fabulous culture and values, of which I am very proud, my father did the same, and the both of them together created a special environment independent of the geographical location where we actually lived. My husband and I tried to do the same for our children living in the US.

Spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually speaking, Palestine was always, still is, and will forever be my true home.

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LT: I would describe it as a human story at the center of a political pie with a slice of love, a dose of culture, a pinch of history, and a dash of hope. I don’t believe that romantic love solely transcends borders and politics, for I see love of country and homeland is just as enchanting.

RZ: Are any of the characters in your novel based on, or inspired by, people you’ve met or know personally?

LT: The simple and straight forward answer is no. There isn’t a specific character based on someone I know or met. But I used my experiences with the people in my life to see my characters with clarity and shape them to the way they turned out. My father’s personality was very complex, and I borrowed some of his traits to create both Omar and Marwan in Bitter Almonds, so in a way, their combined personalities were inspired by some of my father’s attributes.

Additionally, I’ve always admired the sincerity of my teachers, and the ingenuity and strength of the women in my family, starting with my mother’s ability to always see the big picture. I drew on all of that to develop the different female characters in the book.

RZ: You were born in Kuwait to a Syrian mother and a Palestinian father, and you left for the United States after the Gulf War. Tell us a little about your experience living in the US, in terms of identity, exile, “otherness” and/or belonging.

LT: Although I was exposed to the western world as a child through trips to Europe that my parents took us on, I experienced cultural shock just like every immigrant who arrived to the New World. At first, everything was difficult. I missed moving within a big homogeneous community. The little things I took for granted became very important and even essential. I longed for the smells, sounds, and tastes of the Middle East. I remember I had a panic attack the first time I talked one-on-one with my professor when I was studying for my master’s degree.

As time went on, I eased into American life, graduated, married, and moved to another state to start a family. My husband and I made the effort to keep our children within a sphere that combined mainstream America and the Arab American community around us. Furthermore, living in the big mix of ethnicities and backgrounds of the US helped me to assimilate while proudly maintaining my cultural heritage.

The sense of being an outsider diminished, but it didn’t completely disappear. I’m thankful for that. I know where I belong, but of all the places I lived in, I’m not sure where I don’t belong.

RZ: What advise would you give budding writers who might be afraid of pursuing this path?

LT: Don’t write as if someone is looking over your shoulder. Write what you want, more so if it is difficult and thorny. Write what is begging to be released, and be patient, for a writer’s vehicle moves slowly. Don’t let your ego stand in the way of improvement, and always, always, seek honest feedback.

RZ: Which writers were you influenced by while growing up? Which writers are you drawn to now?

LT: Growing up, I read most books by the known Arab geniuses, namely Naguib Mahfouz, Ghassan Kanafani, Taha Hussein, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Anis Mansour and many more. I also read a good number of the translated literary classics for western writers like Earnest Hemingway, Agatha Christie, Jane Austin, the Brontë sisters, and Leo Tolstoy to name a few. As I gained more command of the English language, I re-read those classics in English, which provided me with additional levels of enjoyment and different angles of understanding for the same books.

Currently, I’m drawn to Arab writers such as Susan Abulhawa and Saud Alsanousi. Other writers I like are Khaled Hosseini, and Jodi Picoult.

RZ: What are you working on right now?

LT: I’m working on two novels in parallel. Something I haven’t attempted before. One is a sequel to my third novel, which will hopefully come out next year. The plot is current in time and it deals with American Palestinians connecting with their roots and themes relating to resistance.

The other novel I’m working on explores a rarely touched topic of Palestinian life, and is entirely set in the Middle East.

From Palestine to Ferguson

By Layla A. Goushey

Rumi’s broken mirror.
Shards of truth flying into throats.

Is it police militarization or only the media?
Is it racism or self-defense?
Is it death or only a segment before a commercial break?
Does immaturity deserve the death penalty?

Facebook bubble of privilege.
Unfollow reality and follow Grumpy Cat.
Pledge allegiance to the blissful bubble.

Black child bullied out of the White elementary school.
Palestinian store owner killed on a North City street.
Transnational allegiance to blood on street and sand.

From Ferguson to Palestine,
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Social justice education in a White liberal enclave
with espresso macchiatos and critical theory PhDs.
Doing the hard work
to organize divergent activists
toward converging realities.

Come to the rogue committee now
with charter-school plans for an
Afro-Arab-centric curriculum.
The brother said,
Birth, Poverty, Disease, Death
in JeffVanderLou – St. Louis.
Birth, Poverty, Disease, Death
in Gaza – Palestine.
Birth, Poverty, Disease, Death
From Palestine to Ferguson.

Mind the tear gas.

photographs not taken*

after Marwa Helal and Safia Elhillo
By George Abraham

the scalpel that removed a country
from my teta’s chest, rusting in the hands
of a surgeon who was, perhaps, a zionist;
my mother’s face crossing the finish line
of a marathon for breast cancer research, her
cousin’s name scrawled across the damp running bib;
Palestinian Olympic swimmer takes gold,
rewriting the ocean of her history; the ghosts
of refugee children making a choir of his weeping;

***

family portrait in post-racial society with
filter equating my olive skin to
my brother’s smoldering earth;
my cousin shouting allahou akbar out of irony
after passing through TSA without
being quarantined for the first time;
my father, before the toupee settled on his
head, mid-laugh & the country escaping
from the gap in his front teeth;

***

my head, freshly shaven, for a melanoma
biopsy catching the Florida sunset:
swim practice;
the benign sunspot they removed
from my scalp – brown flesh patch
floating in saline;
screenshot of Google Maps before the West Bank
& Gaza were 2 patches of nameless
flesh outlined in black dots;
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***

my Teta, age 2, after being
baptized in the Dead Sea, holds a
seashell to her ear: a history lesson;
my great aunt’s obituary reading “place of birth:
Jerusalem” & the israeli flag waving
over her open casket;
family portrait in Ramallah,
full-toothed smiles at sunset:
past or present;
an olive tree & magnolia tree, planted
side-by-side, overlooking a cemetery,
mixing displaced soils;
the Haifa skyline every time
so where’s home for you?
falls out of a stranger’s mouth;

***

a lifeguard pulls my 4-year not-corpse from
the pool floor at my first swim lesson:
second baptism;
white man turns his back to drowning
daughter at my community pool: a brief
history of Israel/Palestine;
a cell frozen, mid-mitosis, houses conflicting
entities in a single membrane:
two state ~~solution~~ paradox;
my zionist biology teacher lectures
on respiration
& i drown –

*the poem was selected as a runner up for Emerge Literary Journal’s Civil Disobedience Poetry Contest, and will be published by Emerge Literary Journal

In the painting on the wall

By Chaun Ballard

Handala,
the young refugee boy, stands
at the broken wall
and concentrates his gaze
in the direction of Jerusalem,
and he knows he will pass through
this stone that has opened—
and when he does,
he will venture to the other side
alone.
Though he knows
when he departs this land
he might never return,
he does not turn around. He never waves
farewell to the people gathered.
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Handala,
the young refugee boy, stands
gazing from the broken wall—
fathers, mothers, children,
and liberators have come
to wave flags, some wave hands,
and they know
he must cross into this freedom
alone. For they know his will—
they have all seen his face.

For more poems by Chaun Ballard, check the full issue: Vol. 4, Issue 1

Two poems by Layla Ghoushey

Refuge

Soon after my uncle’s family knocked on the
door of America, he stood on his new home’s
porch with a television in his arms. They were
migrating from the transitory flat to the house,
where Siti would enter paradise years later.
But that time had not yet arrived and, when
he knocked,

no one came.

Perhaps the women were swabbing the floor of the
kitchen, or rinsing the bathtub with bleach. Maybe his
children were disrespecting him. They knew that he
would never find a steady business in this country.

He would get a job at a grocery, but
throw down his apron when asked
to bag at the checkout line like a
half grown kid, not like a man with a
wife, three kids, and a mother
at home.

Perhaps he already knew my
aunt would be the breadwinner
and that he would lose himself
in Palestinian tragedies
broadcast to his living room as
he sipped his mother’s tea.

He threw the idiot box onto the porch, and
the screen shattered into a million pieces.
My aunt opened the door and found him,
lost in America: broken, scattered,
sheltered-in- place.

Public Bath

Bright, white light on Independence Day.
Hot July 4th at the pool. Solitude in a
crowd. Water drips. Fountains burst and
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remember Aya Baradiya, a Palestinian
woman, buried by her uncle to cover her
shame.

I dodge the selfie-sticks of adolescent Roman
conquerors. Their DNA bequeathed from
middle-aged Dads via Paul’s journey to Rome.
Their little chromosomes once voyaged
between Rome and Jerusalem along the Way
of the Soul.

In the drowning Mediterranean,
little refugee boats are baby-filled
with desperation, while in Saint Louis,
a woman in a burqini floats
with her kids at the pool.

Brown bodies, white bodies
meander on the lazy river. Pudgy
curves and love handles spill out
of bikinis.

Sun-starved skin and varicose veins are revealed.
Hats: white, green, blue, with wide brims, conceal
a child’s urine in the pool.

I emerge from the depths, and a breeze
evaporates water from my skin.

A cooling liberty repels the sun’s tyrannical heat.
I am cleansed with the Enlightenment, with
individualism, with secularism, with female
brazen dignity.

I glide on supple little waves.
It is my independence day.

I wash the shame from my skin,
but the filth of privilege remains.

Three poems by Frank Dullaghan

A Liberation

“This shell, it turned out, landed smack in the middle of the Jabaliya cemetery”
Josh Glancy reporting on Gaza in The Sunday Times, (UK) 27.07.14

I don’t suppose it was any trouble
to them, leaping into the air like that,
smithereened, baring their bits
to the blasted air. Of course, they came

crashing back to earth, scattered, mixed-
up, not knowing who was who.
But for that while, they were high.
It must have felt like the End of Days,

the Assentation, come upon them,
dancing together, all tooth and grin,
their bones blown towards heaven,
the first to be liberated from Gaza.

But just as quickly as they were lifted,
they were let down – isn’t that
how it always is? – their internment
heaped upon them again.

The Children Are Silent

The children have learned to be silent.
They look through you,
their eyes older than their faces.
They carry their small bodies like suitcases
that they can pick up or put down.

They think their mothers are great engines
that can go on and on,
mile after mile, as if each day
is just another road, as if insanity
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Their fathers follow like blown sand,
collars flapped up against history,
their cupped hands reddening
as they pull the small hope
of cigarette smoke into their lungs.

The children may never speak again.
They have gone beyond words,
grown beyond hope. They know that
all the leaders just sit at the same dark tables
and look at each other.

Hamdan Street

You will find him in one of the small alleys
behind Hamdan Street, a narrow shop,
the pavement broken outside.
Inside it is bare, a blank counter, a door
into the back. His day starts at 6am.
There is nothing electric
about his iron. It is traditional,
heavy, charcoal filled. Another man
wouldn’t last an hour. But he drives it
all day, nosing it down the pleat
of a dishdash, smoothing the wrinkled age
out of a sheet. He lives in the heat
and the steam. At 8pm he stops, eats
rice and vegetables, sometimes goat.
He sleeps under the counter. He is proud.
He is the Iron Man of Abu Dhabi.