Palestinian-American poet (b 1973) gave two readings in Cairo last week, at the invitation of Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafi Cultural Fund. Born in Jordan, Hammad moved to Brooklyn, New York, with her family as a child. One of the most compelling Arab-American poets to have emerged in recent years, Hammad has three books to her name -- Born Palestinian, Born Black (1996), Drops of this Story (1996) and ZaatarDiva (2005) -- as well as poems published in a host of journals and anthologies (see www.suheirhammad.com ). She also served as co-writer and cast member of the Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, which won a Tony Award. At the American University in Cairo last Sunday, Hammad read/performed some 10 poems of hers, of which we reproduce five below. The poems chosen reflect a whole range of themes and preoccupations both personal and political, from the Palestinian predicament and racial profiling in the US via growing up with Um Kulthoum's voice to a brother's accident. Interacting with the audience between poems, Hammad explained that every poem she wrote was in some sense a Palestinian poem -- whether overtly, as in "jerusalem sunday", metaphorically, as in "rocks off", which is about Palestine, or in her own response to the subject matter, as in a poem that resulted from her experience serving in shelters and fund-raising in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Asked about the multiple audiences she addresses and her hybrid identity as an Arab-American, Hammad elaborated on how she strove, especially in her latest poetry collection, ZaatarDiva, to forge an Arabic-English slang, a "language that would fit over this grey matter, language that is not purely oriental, or occidental, but accidental." The poems below, from Hammad's ZaatarDiva (Rattapallax Press, New York), are reproduced by kind permission of the poet. Poems by bint il neel I no surprise it was your father started it taught you allah's word and said sing daughter sing a bird you sang from your belly to soar over all of egypt in the delta's villages muwlads weddings ramadan breakfasts you flew your voice no surprise it was god started it put a burning in your mouth and said open up and sing you were young and a novelty voice so big baba dressed you a boy and you traveled to the ears of rich men learned men men of leisure with shillings and servants entrances for you to shadow II i did not like you how could i my mother would turn off the radio playing assimilation and press tape play always you first the applause then the men yelling always the men ya aaallaaaahh ! praising your voice a gift from paradise the music always a long intro then your voice flying through the roach speakers of a cheap plastic radio into brooklyn with a wailing a whale of a voice with words i did not understand this was all your voice my mother had to remind her of herself and i hated you you made mommy cry III you loved poetry and god's word stressed sang juiced a line until it rang perfect listen ya naceeni oh you who have forgotten it has never crossed your mind to ask after me oh you who have forgotten me oh you who have forgotten me oh you who have forgotten me oh you who have forgotten me IV and now i have made mama cry i who love poetry and god's good word i who stress a line until it sounds like a note wa inti ala bali you are on my mind i have not forgotten and though it was men and their gods started it you sang for women for my mother and her daughters your voice a bird under her wings tears not shed made her heavy flew low a breeze from the nile rocks off she has hoarded the stones you've thrown collected them as jewels polished with earnest cut them on her teeth into museum worth each with a story a particular force behind and each she excused as it hit forgave in mid air labeled accident the aim but the truth is your target was specific under her breast left her temple right below her navel she is marked still traces of mineral under lashes on her back in her belly she has stored away the stones cast and while you were digging up the earth for the next rock to heavy her eyes look she has polished cut she has built a pyramid of diamonds a testament her strength What I will I will not dance to your war drum. I will not lend my soul nor my bones to your war drum. I will not dance to your beating. I know that beat. It is lifeless. I know intimately that skin you are hitting. It was alive once hunted stolen stretched. I will not dance to your drummed up war. I will not pop spin beak for you. I will not hate for you or even hate you. I will not kill for you. Especially I will not die for you. I will not mourn the dead with murder nor suicide. I will not side with you nor dance to bombs because everyone else is dancing. Everyone can be wrong. Life is a right not collateral or casual. I will not forget where I come from. I will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved near and our chanting will be dancing. Our humming will be drumming. I will not be played. I will not lend my name nor my rhythm to your beat. I will dance and resist and dance and persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than death. Your war drum ain't louder than this breath. jerusalem sunday jeru salem sun day three muezzins call idan where one's allah begins another's akbar ends inviting the last to witness mohammad's prophecies church bells ring the sky an ocean shade of blue above christ's tomb and the stones of this city witness man's weakness boys run by the torah strapped to their third eye ready to rock their prayers the roofs of this city busy as the streets the gods of this city crowded and proud two blind and graying arab men lead each other through the old city surer of step than sight tourists pick olives from the cracks in the faces of young and graying women selling mint onions and this year's oil slicking the ground this city is wind breathe it sharp this history is blood swallow it warm this sunday is holy be it god brooklyn sometimes we pose you loud like a cheap trophy posturing look at me from the planet of illest mcs and brickest cheese sometimes quietly we know the streets is watching our actions recorded we secret you from those who patrol our thoughts and study our styles we leave you in order to see your beauty from a distance back home in instants we drop baggage and settle into our selves your children travel far and wherever we are we hear bk represent always the loud-asset we say if you can make it here you got nothing to fear true every hood fashion fly shit but they come to your streets to make it legit you got as many stories as streets as each of us shaped by your concrete and green you became the safe jerusalem for us not chosen yet did not shelter yusef hawkins running from hate if we tell the truth here we got nothing to fear you molded heroes and sent them out on record tours brooklyn i could write you forever on every corner on the backs of handball players with the exhaust of your buildings for your exhausted masses i could write you forever for the absences and abundances of the childhoods you gifted us listen to the way you gallop from my mouth make folks smile just to hear me talk cause they trace my cadence back to you we always return like love and heartbreak are one coin two sides you are your daughters' currency in foreign cities we always come home and you always make room like expandable apartments filled with immigrants and their labors you always make room for our sins and our saviors you always make room for prodigal daughters who sometimes talk out loud to our selves just to hear your stories come out our mouths
