For my comparison, I looked at "The Night There" (23) and "Who am I without Exile" (113). Present in both poems was this incredible tone of struggle. The first really touched me because it spoke of the perseverance to remain true to one's values and continue just living in the face of incredible human anguish/suffering. There is this deep sense that there is no good or moral decency in humankind being in the midst of exile, persecution, and war. This notion of trying to be true to your values when all hell breaks loose is incredibly powerful to me, especially knowing the types of things that the author was enduring at this time.
The second poem also resonated with me because again it talked about the identity of being a refugee. As the daughter of refugee parents, the topic really helps me understand the type of despair and trauma that people like my parents went through. There is this sense of nostalgia and immense pain knowing that there is no going back to both the physical location of their home but also a better historical period of time where this chaos didn't exist.
As a sidenote, I really wonder when I read translated poems just how much is being lost in the translations. Nonetheless, it's still beautiful.
So I can't figure out how to make a new post so I'm commenting on Cecilia's post : )
ReplyDeleteI felt that Zaatar Diva was the perfect reading to assign for a love as resistance poem week, and after reading the book it made me disappointed that we did not chose “love as resistance” as our weekly themed poem. Particularly, I liked the poem entitled “Valentine” starting on page 48. In this poem Hammad breaks to the often used critique of Valentine’s Day (commercialize holiday, love should be everyday ect…), however she then goes deeper than just the superficial/stereotypical aspects of love. She gets political, talking of Vietnam War vets, and talks of small box blankets that were given to Native Americans. She demonstrates how loving this idea of America is all a lie, and that if you do love “America,” your love’s foundation is based on pain and suffering. By ending with “stay warm, create spring in your heart, start with yourself,” the author suggests that by denying America’s temptation, you’re love for yourself in resistance to this American hegemony.
In contrast, Hammad’s poem cloud kissing demonstrates what we would think of as a more mainstream love poem. There is not much resistance about it like the previous poem, but it still uses the same tools to tell the read what the author is feeling. The author uses the first person masterfully and makes amazing nature and urban environment references to make the read put him and herself in the mind of the speaker.
Im responding to Cecelia. I really liked the poems you read. I could feel the struggle as well. your personal connection to the refugee experience must make the poem that much more powerful
ReplyDelete-Kevin