Poetry and Politics

[ajnabieh]

Deep in my current fieldwork, I'm taking a strange detour, into poetry. There's a small but vibrant Arab arts scene in New York, and I'm trying to figure out how to think about the literary work produced in it as "data" for my research. In particular, I'm trying to work through how to do that without either resorting to a very cheap definition of politics, wherein it means everything and nothing, and yet also not stripping the writing of any artistic content. Suheir Hammad says in her poem "palestinian 98":

this poem begging to be
beautiful poised
articulate this poem
palestinian and too late

But of course the poem's own form refutes its statement: it is "beautiful poised/articulate," even if Hammad doubts its ability to respond to the questions she is posed. Political poetry (particularly the good stuff) is both/and, and I want to be able to capture some of that both/and in my work.

Anyway, this means I'm spending a lot of time reading Hammad's work. She's a Palestinian-American raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, and she's relatively well known for her appearances on Def Poetry Jam, as well as for her poem First Writing Since,, which I think of as the quintessential poem about September 11th. It perfectly captures the relationship between being a New Yorker and being an Arab and being a person committed to social justice, in that particular moment in history.

first, please god, let it be a mistake, the pilot's heart failed, the
plane's engine died.
then please god, let it be a nightmare, wake me now.
please god, after the second plane, please, don't let it be anyone
who looks like my brothers.

True story: Suheir Hammad once performed at a benefit for my wife's former employer. Walking home after the event, we passed her outside. I waved. She waved back. I had to text my roommate in a full bout of fangirl.

***

Tahani Salah is a poet who is easily compared to Hammad, as another Brooklyn-born Palestinian-American who performs spoken word (and also an alum of Def Poetry Jam). She's younger, though I can't find an exact age, went to Columbia (is still at Columbia?), and has competed on the Nuyorican team at the National Poetry Slam. I've heard her perform at Al-Awda demonstrations and at other Palestine events in the city. She hasn't yet published a book that I can find, and doesn't seem to maintain a website. That means that my major source for her work is YouTube videos of her performances...and that I'm having to make transcripts of her stuff.

This appears to be her most famous poem, "Hate." She performed it on Def Poetry Jam, and also at the National Poetry Slam. This is the Def Poetry Jam version, though the other one is on YouTube as well.

All line breaks and punctuation mine; please let me know if you spot errors. This poem is by Tahani Salah.

I have this image in my head
That one day when I step off this airplane I'll be on this land
Where the air is sweeter than any fruit I have tasted
And that the land is softer than any cloud I could ever imagine
And that peace was possible
But for now,
the mothers of our holy land are being stabbed, raped, and murdered
And before I could get to her,
she has fallen
My siblings and I feel guilty that we haven't given her ourselves
For we bleed her blood,
For her blood runs through me,
I speak for her will and for her people even though there's no one to listen anymore
And still your question stands:
Why do these young Palestinian children hate so much?
It shouldn't be why; it should be
What kind of hate do they have?
Because it was never for our people and nor for our causes
Hate
keeps them alive
This hate
makes them live another day even though there's nothing to live for
This hate
makes them want to have children just to teach them not to hate
Because on the other side, hate is grown through children
Hate is grown through trees in the shape of a V
And never for peace
For their own protection
Hate
is shown through black sheets and separation, never integration
Hate
is the fact that in this country,
we teach our six year old children to step
and throw baseballs in Little League games
with crowds of parents cheering behind them
And in other countries, there are six year old children who step
and throw rocks to protect the tears and the lives of their grandparents
[inaudible line because of cheering]
So maybe this hate
is not your ordinary hate
Maybe this hate
kept my father alive
Maybe this hate
makes children feel as if they have to hold their shit in one extra day
just to feel full
And before you could ever say you didn't mean it that way
Six year old children walking down roads
kicking pebbles the wrong way
get shot at,
Seven year old children walking down roads
speaking the wrong language at the wrong time
get shot at,
And before you could ever say you were sorry
the mothers of our holy land are being stabbed, raped, and murdered
And before you could ever learn of her
Or I could ever get to her
She has fallen.



She's a vibrant performer. I am also interested to see how she's interrogating the notion of Palestinians as hateful, not by rejecting it, but by redefining hate as a useful, motivating function. I also find it interesting that in both the performances I watched, there is so much cheering over the lines "And in other countries, there are six year old children who step/and throw rocks to protect the tears and the lives of their grandparents" that I can't hear the following line.

So: poetry as data. Political ethnography is nothing if not interesting.