On May 3, 2018 an event was held in Harlem, NY with artists working at the intersection of identity, borders, and diaspora. It was the day imprisoned Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour received a guilty verdict from an Israeli court for a poem urging her people to resist oppression. It was the month that marked (over) 70 years of ongoing Nakba.

The evening was co-produced with Qubit and featured readings from seven poets (Marwa Helal, Golden, Tala Abu Rahmeh, Claire Schwartz, Jess Rizkallah, Gabby Spear and Dina Omar), music by Huda Asfour, and art by Camille Hoffman.

THE MIDDLE EAST IS MISSING / Marwa Helal

Originally published in Hyperallergic on January 25, 2017

 

wha do osama bin laden and i have in common?   saddam? qaddafi? mubarak? sharon?
peres? is kashmir? is asia? is persia? is europe? is iran? is jordan? is kurd? a language? a
religion? cuisine? borders on bordering? wha do you and i have in common? red sea
dead sea an empire syria iraq   say kurd say we were occupied
a people under siege of make xenophobia believe   drink and say, “zamzam.”

say we did it to ourselves.
say: complicit. i want to walk/   return maps speak to managers of mapmakers
i’d like to see god’s atlas compare it to ours trace a new equator a river nile still running
azure
azure
upwards its own gravity joins scapegoat to scapegoat
in song: row row row your boat gently down a stream merrily merrily merrily life is but a
dream
x3
say je suis zidane, je suis egyptienne.

say it to a rhythm not a plot
a quality not a toxin
say dizzy without jury without trial ask of us just us sing back lyric
dust off vulgar gaslight

say it in the colonizer’s tongue.   call it the cradle of civilization say dunyah say la illahah
ila allah say jannah inscribe your history inside every barren closet you once occupied say
quickly here we are now entertain us/ cartographers agitate us
exact us excise us

would you make a space for me? between zoot jute epoxy and a hard place somewhere
between vengeance and yolk next to the place you go to quake

ive brought my own pillow plus sleeping bag but now the letters have become cryptic i
cant tell if it is because of shyness or lack of interest when you look like me you can say
things no one will question or everyone will question you in june as a zygote in uterus
in excess

maybe it is a cry for help. maybe it is just a cry. say palestinian
say palestine
say syria
say syrian
say baby
say future
say mine
say yemen
say yemeni
say zay (like)
say hena (here)
say mine say ghost in context weep quietly then wail
so make a space for me in your mind.
make me a space
graph, transcribe. jaunt, wax, wane.
here is neruda. here is his book of questions.
here is mine. a quiz of sorts. this is the map i navigate by.

who you pulling from bricks? a baby? an arm? books? a ball? who’s is it? you ask
coaxing at gallons of quicksand absorbing and vying for joy, for protozoa

pray static pray jaw pray zoroastrian
pray xanax pray quickly borrow what you will from
god, from vagrancy, from vacancy

before i left i wrote: where you from? where you from? where you from? inside every
empty closet of the homes i once occupied. dont forget
where youre from, dont squint. zoom in. stow the box, lock the key. jump on.

we made a new map from breath from zone to zone we
moved, traveled, walked, journeyed. there are many
who experience what we havent quote benefited from being unquote.

maybe a cry for help, maybe jus a cry. maybe a memory quivering of a juvenile
kingdom’s lie, maybe was a zealous royal
who unleashed sand and sphinx making borders die: in yellow,
blue, green, and red, orange and cream lines.

ERASURE OF NYPD 2015 ANNUAL FIREARMS DISCHARGE TRAINING SECTION / Golden

THE DAY THEY BOMBED AND WE HAD TO SLEEP IN THE HALLWAY or
PRELUDE TO MUCH WORSE TIMES / Tala Abu Rahmeh

What is the Fourth of July
for someone without country?

My friends whose hands
I’ve loved, dreams
became mine, who know

how to say my name,
like my mother intended,
barbecue burgers.

Fireworks are worshipped
for one night, eyes widen
at the magic of noise

that sounds to someone
like me,
like bombs,

brings me back to the night
when the army shelled the balcony,
tore the glass from its root,

landed us in the hallway

to lay on the carpet
tight under covers
quiet like mice, inches from glossy traps.

In an attempt to tempt

fate we crawled on all fours
to the kitchen, peeled the fridge
open, little light,
and extracted

la Vache qui rit,

cheese triangle, piece of heaven,
in the darkest night.

I ate it with the tip of my finger,
not sure if bullets could hear the sound

of spoons, and stop, for a second,
to let the mouthful in.

My heart went silent,
the salt sat in my scared

stomach, hushed the floor
of my gut, as if the world

wasn’t on fire,|
my house wasn’t on fire
my life wasn’t on fire

and I was swimming in an ocean
feeling its taste on my tongue

swimming underneath,
where the only sound

is the thud of water,
the breath of waves,

as it grazes my neck
and

for a second

in the pull of my lungs

the war is over

the war never was.

REDACTED / Claire Schwartz

This poem first appeared in The Massachusetts Review Volume 58, Issue 2

The version of Redacted that appears in the print version of Volume 1 has significant errors. Responsibility for these errors lies solely with the GrayLit editorial team, and we offer our sincere apologies to poet Claire Schwartz and to our readers. This digital version is correct, and the original PDF is here.