It’s fine. Whatever happens is meant to happen. Nothing more, nothing less.
East Quad, 2:00PM, 1/11/2024
we are in charge of our fates in a perverse kind of way, in that we circle the inevitable like a marble in a funnel. it is easy to do what is easy, to let gravity take control, to appease the vultures that accompany death, to look back and say that it was going to happen anyway. we only resign ourselves to fate when staring at failure–would we ever attribute our success to the stars? the sky clears and for a moment the earth is sprinkled with starlight: a reminder of magnitudes, of multitudes. nothing more, nothing less.
I don’t know if I can watch a show and go, “that was in the book! That wasn’t in the book!”
EECS Building, 11:30AM, 1/30/2024
i tell myself i would watch an infinite number of realities with you but we both know that’s not true. it is impossible to write a future identical to the book in the same way it is impossible to direct a life identical to a movie. you tell me about your life and i hear you but i don’t listen. shuffle the deck. the tarot reader looks up and then looks away. perhaps she sees everything and perhaps she sees nothing at all. you can always tell when a chapter is about to end. who is to blame, an unreliable narrator or an unforgiving audience?
You’re going to be polite and smile, and let it roll off your shoulders, because that’s life. That’s just how the world works.
Crisler Center Lot SC-5, 2:30PM, 2/23/2024
the rain is black, heavy, foreboding. the magazine betrays a tragic parlance and you stop reading in between the lines because they blur into a single sentence. i turn the page and point to the cartoons, figures distorted from the damp ink. the uncertainty is memorable. i crawl through a tunnel of nostalgia, the sapphires, the jade, the rubies. my heart races from the effort of keeping up. the tunnel ends and i turn back but there is just a pinprick of flame, snuffed out by the rain before i can blink.
On Reserve
I’m not very well-read. Especially
when it comes to you. You’re a
closed book, whereas I belong in
the children’s section. Thankfully,
you’re a bookworm. You didn’t
judge me by my cover when I
checked out at the library, unable
to take my eyes off the page and
too engrossed in the story of
you and me that I plotted out.
I may be illiterate, but in my books,
I’m a pretty good author, though
I wasn’t always good with words.
Talking to the text had me on the
edge of my seat. I wanted to book it:
the ticket to the next chapter in our
lives, until the falling action and
resolution scared me. To drown out
the words, you gifted me a photo
album. The best possible genre for
our favorite memories: dancing in
the library at 2 in the morning,
browsing books at the bookstore we
couldn’t afford, fighting our hopeless
finals with senseless doodles. It’s due
soon: the audiobook I’ll give you. I
wrote out and narrated our future life
possibilities, like the adventurous
romantic fantasy I planned right
from the start at the library.
- Sappy
After Party
loud party tight room shouting voices bright lights
the breeze brings me out into the o p e n air
running
walking
strolling
floating
breathing
being
Reflections on the event “Silenced and Forgotten Palestinian Literature and Art” lead by Arabic Language and Culture Club, with support from SJP
This piece acts as a reflection surrounding poetry as a part of the Palestinian identity and Free Palestine Movement, observed by me as a student on the University of Michigan-Dearborn Campus.
Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time Close to the gardens of broken shadows, We do what prisoners do, And what the jobless do: We cultivate hope.
Mahmoud Darwish, Under Siege
As far as I know, there has always been an organization called “Students for Justice in Palestine” at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Of course, I know that there is a strong Arab American community in Dearborn, and I knew that there was a Center for Arab American Studies, but I hadn’t seen as many events as I do now. Maybe I did, but as a white person, never felt like it was my place to attend them.
It is only in the last 6 months with the emergence of protests, collective action, and a flurry of educational events being organized on my campus that I have begun to understand that I can choose to take an active role in allyship, that it wouldn’t be “intrusive” to be in spaces that needed to reach people like me. I regrettably have to admit that I am not the fierce advocate I should be, but I am learning.
Meeting new people and learning more about the long-standing oppression of the Palestinians has been a key motivator in my desire to take action, speak, and yes, write on behalf of the cause of liberation. I’ve noticed that art and poetry in particular has been an effective way to share the historical oppression and genocide of the Palestinian people. Perhaps art makes the subject more accessible and cuts to the heart of human experience. In particular, how the human experience has been impeded and forced through unimaginable circumstances. Horror beyond my comprehension, yet life and hope remain.
I have now attended 2 events on Palestinian poetry. The first (which will be discussed in this post) featured poems presented by UM-D professors. Due to a late start and my carpooling, I was only able to attend the first part of the event. I took notes as I listened in an effort to get the most out of the poem scholarly analysis that followed, and this post is based on these notes and my reflections of an event I attended months ago and just decided to write about now due to its impact on me and connection to other events.
As the event kicked off, it was clear we were not going to be thrown into the reading blindly. I appreciated the context established by the professors leading the event, who shared the history of the Palestinians and their decades long struggle with Israeli occupation, from the 1948 Nakba to current day. There was also special attention given to how and why those who seek to oppress target art and poetry: to control the creative is meant to control the thought and enforce submission to the regime in the spirit of the event: Silenced and Forgotten Palestinian Literature and Art.
We were told that there was and is a frequency of kidnapping and assassination of Palestinian’s who write about and question life under Israeli occupation, and my chest panged thinking of Refaat Alareer (whose poem “If I Must Die” follows me wherever I go) and countless other great thinkers, poets, artists, and journalists who have died under siege with their people.
We were also informed of a theme to seek out in the poem by Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish that would be read to us to start, and one I noted as particularly interesting was the theme of the Palestinian body. The control of the Palestinian body, the loss of legal rights and the right to live were mentioned, as well as the Palestinian body as a symbol for the people and the land. In my notes, I inscribed the body being “not a passive object or victim, but a fighter.” The body is not defeated. And often, it feels like the body is all can be had.
My steps are wind and sand, my world is my body and what I can hold onto. I am the traveler and also the road. Gods appear to me and disappear. We don’t linger upon what is to come. There is no tomorrow in this desert, save what we saw yesterday, so let me brandish my ode to break the cycle of time, and let there be beautiful days!
– Mahmoud Darwish, A Rhyme for The Odes
This event was crafted in a way that made art a vehicle for learning more about history, the political situation Palestine is afflicted by, the silence and betrayal coming from their neighboring nations, and connecting with the experiences of Palestinians. All of these intricate topics were tied into discussion through a poem recounting a story of martyrdom, Ahmad al Zatar.
This is why art has an essential role in resistance. For oppressed people, art is not only a way to communicate but a way to exercise their humanity and spirit which their oppressors attempt to crush completely. However, for those seeking to be allies, art is just an entry point to the broader movement and conversation. Art brings us together, but we bear the responsibility to not only engage in, but maintain the dialogue prompted by art in hopes that it sparks action to shape a better world.
