A poetic conversation between Fariha Róisín and Hala Alyan

a month of poems and musings

The poetic tradition is long, especially in Islam. They say the Qu’ran itself is just one long poetic verse, Shakespearean and perfect in its iambic parameter, constructed by the divine. 

In many cultures worldwide, poetry is seen as a vessel of the sacred, a channel to something otherworldly, beyond here. 

When two poets converge together, their conversations become different pathways to spiritual and emotional heights. There is a long-standing history of this in the Muslim world as well, where poets, writers, and translators alike would speak to themselves and each other about the art of poetry, and what it means to communicate in verse, in the abstract and mercurial, and what different perspectives can be gained from these excavations. 

Poetry is also political, and in a time that requires so much from us, poetry allows us to convey the depths of life, decay and genocide in different ways. As

Hala Alyan

writes in her new poem below:

“What is the most American thing about you?

My mouth. My loud. My dollar.

How it goes from pocket to pocket to missile,

lodges itself into a boy’s rib.”

There is no seclusion between us and the realities of the world.

Hala and I wanted to connect and excavate in this form, to bleed ourselves onto the page through poems and learn from our aches and our stutterings about how to move forward in times like this… so for the rest of July, every Friday, we will be doing a call and response to each other, to elucidate and get closer to what’s more, what’s next. 

This week, the first week, we start with Hala’s first poem. 

I hope you’ll join us for this journey.

Fariha

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What is the most American thing about you?

by Hala Alyan

My mouth. My nerves. The six accents in my accent.

The way I cross a street without looking twice.

Fill a suitcase without thinking twice.

Wake at dawn to nothing.

The way I count a slaughter in months.

One, two, three, four.

My mouth. That I still believe it can get me out of trouble.

That when a soldier asked where from I said

Gaza then Texas then nowhere.

That when a soldier touched my hair

and said who knows what you might be hiding

I said yes said sorry said I got it from a woman.

Don’t worry. She’s dead. You flooded her village.

Five, six, seven, eight.                                         

How many months are in a body.

How many cradles are in a bloodline.

A father walks the streets and says:

This is a child. This is a child. This is a child.

My mouth.

The way it makes confessions nobody asked for.

The way it forgets the word for حسرة, خيال, استسلام.

The way it’s always telling a story.

Once there was a man. A ring. A border shredded like paper.

Once an army banned wedding dresses

and apples and pianos and the children became memos

and the land flattened with noise

and Lorca says nor is my house any longer my house

and Darwish says I forgot like you to die

and what do you call a photo op?

What do you call water that nobody can drink?

What is the most American thing about you?

My mouth. My loud. My dollar.

How it goes from pocket to pocket to missile,

lodges itself into a boy’s rib.

My river, my tree, my ring.

How I like to call them mine.

How I still love the moon

even when drone

even when checkpoint

even when children eat what do they eat.

O but the moon.

Once it glowed in Jbail.

Once I wore a dress and walked into a room of music.

Once I gave a ring back.

I’m sorry. Forget the ring. Forget the moon.

A father walks the streets and says:

This is a country. This is a country. This is a country.

In Manhattan it’s a new month

and before she dies, she doesn’t die.

Before she dies, she says now the rest of you have to live.

So we live and live and live.

We gather in a church by a park to listen to the sound of her voice.

We say this is living.

We say right. We say I love, I love, I love.

Once a man said I will burn the English from your mouth

and what he meant was

I am like you

dangerous and pretending not to be.

Forget the man.

I’m saying I want to be remade: in a Belfast terminal, in a ten-thousand-person march,

in a bed in Greenpoint,

I’m saying I want to be touched until I forget my own name.

Lorca says just your hot heart.

Darwish says I want from love only the beginning

so here’s my American memory

short as a song

here’s my grandmother’s sea —

it moves bright as gossip, visible from every window

o land of interruption

o road trip into the past. Forget the past.

I’m trying to say I love a good interrogation.

I’m trying to say

they turned dresses into crimes.

Who remembers the music?

Who breathes through rubble?

Once a place exploded and

my father became fictional.

Don’t talk to me about September.

I forget. Whose husband was that? Mine? Not mine.

Whose birthplace. Whose soldier

pointed a gun and said, Hey pretty, sit down.

What is the most American thing about you?

Was it your hair or your knife?
Your rot or your metaphor?

What do you think I’d do with a missile?

Once I hitchhiked from rooftop to sea, left during the war,

came back, slept on a bench, slept for a year

and the walls were yellow and the

bombs rattled the windows and nobody died.

My knees on the ground.

My god on the line

and I can’t stop dreaming about those dresses

the shovels

the children

the way a man said he’d die and then lived and then left.

Lorca says why was I born among mirrors.

Darwish says if there must be a moon, let it be high.

Once my grandmother left a village

and they put a waterpark in its place.

Once I left my name in a man’s mouth

and I think it might be time to go get it.

Forget the moon. I’m saying I want to live.
I want to hear her voice every morning. I want music. I want wine.

I want the wrong accent, the wrong sea, the wrong hands on my throat, I want what

I want what I want and this

is the most American thing about me.

I’m saying forget my hands. I’m nowhere near a checkpoint.

I’m ten past midnight

a full mile west to the water

and from here this river could be a sea

this country could be a country

and how dare I speak of love?

Where are the dresses now?

Who hems their lace?

Whose hands collect white?

Whose hands count bodies?

Who will remember what was done?

Who will do all this living?