Today I am starting what I hope will be a series of posts introducing you to one writer at a time. That’s not to say that I won’t go back to book lists on themes or other posts, but I would like to take the time to introduce voices that move me and share them with you.
I had an opportunity a while back to go to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. In addition to the artwork displayed in the museum, that night they had a poetry reading featuring three poets. First on the bill was Nikki Giovanni, a famous poet whose work I had read in literature anthologies, text books, and her own books. Next was Elizabeth Acevedo. While I had not read any of her poetry, I had read her then recent release, The Poet X, and had loved it entirely. The third poet was a writer I had never heard of — Emtithal Mahmoud.
Mahmoud began in a soft and, what seemed to me at first, shaky voice as she introduced herself and talked a little about writing. Those first words belied who this forceful woman is and her accomplishments. It also hid the wonderfully dynamic and compelling voice we would be hearing as she began speaking about things important to her and performing her poetry. Her online biography quotes The Guardian, “She has debated with presidents, been comforted by the Dalai Lama, and been called one of the world’s most inspiring women — but it’s as a poet that Emtithal Mahmoud truly shines.” (emi-mahmoud.com) Both in her activism and her poetry she advocates for refugees, for the disadvantaged, for women. She talked to us that night about hosting civilian peace talks across Sudan in her “One Girl Walk and Dreams for Peace Initiative” where she walked across Sudan gaining supporters along the way and speaking out on the issues plaguing her country.
Hers is a remarkable journey from refugee to America where she attended Yale studying Anthropology and Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology. She became a UN Goodwill Ambassador, a poetry slam champion, and spoke to world leaders in forums from Paris to Davos and The Hague. She is included on Forbes 30 Under 30 list, the BBC’s 100 Most Inspirational Women, and Harper’s Bazaar’s New Change-makers for 2020.
I felt that I needed to tell you all of this so that you will know the kind of woman I am writing about here today. After the first couple of sentences she uttered in DC that evening, I was on the edge of my seat hanging on to every word she uttered. Her poems of war-torn lands, of refugees, of women, and of her family mesmerized and left me heartbroken. Her poems are clear and readable, accessible and powerful. I sat down last night, not for the first time, with her book Sisters’ Entrance. It is a small book that can be read in one sitting but not digested that quickly. I devoured it and marked places to share with you.
I won’t share them all today. I will share passages from three poems and the entirely of a another which is rather long (the length of some of her poems is part of why I’m only sharing a few lines from the others). And even as I say this I’m thinking, “but what about…” and the words that I really want everyone to read. I want you to hear her reading “Choir of Kings,” her tribute to a grandmother who fully understood what Barbara Kinsolver writes in The Bean Trees about “How They Eat in Heaven.” I want you to feel the love of the poem “Mama” and the achingly beautiful “Dad” which echoed in my mind the longing Harry Chapin sang of in “Cat’s in the Cradle.” But you’ll have to get the book for those (and please do — you will not regret the purchase).
I am sharing some of her words about women. Passages written which delve into lives women everywhere can recognize. Passages with advice from a mother and to the reader. Passages about misogyny and the dehumanizing of females. Please enjoy these snippets from the book. Look her up online. She is an amazing writer and force for good in the world.
from the poem “Why I Haven’t Told You Yet”
…We teach our girls to quarantine their emotions —
isolate heart and reason or risk perceptions of hysteria.
We’re taught that our anger is a misconception,
that our discontent will pass as long as we smile pretty,
clean up nice, and play into this courtship dichotomy.
This twisted game of act and receive
where your role is assigned at birth.
Well, this is me telling you
.
that the only winning move is not to play…
MAHMOUD, EMTITHAL, SISTERS’ ENTRANCE. KANSAS CITY, MO: ANDREWS MCMEEL PUBLISHING, 2018. 32-34.
from the poem “The Things She Told Me”
…She said with a shaking voice,
Learn these things, before they teach you.
.
Death loves a woman, but we are still here.
.
And the moon is crying, or maybe singing
and the stars look down in mourning
as we melt hatred and weave compassion,
gather the waste from each body
and wld resilience.
.
We do this every day—make a good thing
out of nothing,
be the strong ones,
be okay even when we’re not.
.
But today, we’re more than okay,
we are women.
So, take my strength, I’ve got plenty.
.
Take my hands, I’ve got two.
Take my voice, let it guide you
and if it shakes, ask yourself:
.
when the earth shakes,
do you think that she’s afraid?
Mahmoud, Emtithal, Sisters’ entrance. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2018. 29-30.
from “Classrooms”
…Like I haven’t seen the world end
a thousand times.
Like I hadn’t held my mother as she cried
or my father as he broke over and over again.
.
Like I never played hopscotch in a war zone
Like I haven’t woken up
on the wrong side of heaven
every day since.
.
Where I come from, the opposite of learning
is death. The price of speaking is flesh.
The weight of being a woman scars
deeper than the most unforgiving of wounds
.
But not today, not among my sisters,
not in this room, not in the next,
Not in a world where I can stand,
me here woman, proud
.
speaking like the world didn’t try to erase me.
wearing my wings and vaulting
fists raised toward the sky
.
When your existence is an act of defiance, live.
MAHMOUD, EMTITHAL, SISTERS’ ENTRANCE. KANSAS CITY, MO: ANDREWS MCMEEL PUBLISHING, 2018. 50-52.
“How to Translate a Joke”
A man walks into the market looking for a date.
He asks the village playboy for help.
The village playboy says,
watch, and learn.
.
He walks up to a girl selling honey
and says, do you have any honey, honey?
She swoons, gives him honey
and a kiss.
.
He walks up to a woman selling flowers,
Do you have any flowers, you rose?
She melts, gives him flowers
and a kiss.
.
He walks up to a third woman,
Do you have any sugar, sugar?
.
She practically dies,
.
gives him sugar,
and kisses him twice.
.
The playboy comes back,
your turn, stud.
The man apprehensively walks up
to a woman selling dairy
And says,
.
Do you have any milk, cow?
.
Realize that humor transcends
all boundaries; that laughter
is a language that knows no borders;
.
that this joke I heard in Arabic
makes perfect sense in English,
and French, and any other dialect—
.
Realize that we call women cows
in every language
Realize that humor leaves little room
for questions, and even less room
for victims and even less room
for apologies.
.
Realize that in one version of this joke,
the man is looking to pick up girls,
in another, he’s looking for a wife,
in the third, he’s looking
for an answer.
.
And maybe the cow slaps him,
or the cow asks him to leave
and he tries again,
or she walks faster,
clutches her purse
or maybe she threatens him
and is jailed for treason or maybe
.
the cow sues him
and the case is dismissed
or they settle
.
down
.
We are willing to say offensive
more than we say dangerous
as if harm isn’t transitive
as if it isn’t something you do
to another person.
.
We like to pretend that I am not
as uncomfortable alone
on the streets of New York
as I am on the streets of Nepal,
that a stroll in Philly or Indiana,
Minnesota, doesn’t bring as many stares
as in India, or Sudan, or Egypt
.
That violence is a third world problem,
that it isn’t here, hiding
in a conversation, or a bouquet,
or a market
that not being alone makes a difference.
.
If they don’t get the joke, say it again,
smile more this time, repeat the punchline,
pause for dramatic effect
use jazz hands. If you have to,
.
laugh.
.
In another version, that man walks
into the market, looking for a date,
and leaves with an unwilling woman,
a bounty.
.
In my language, I am a sweet,
and if not that, a decoration,
a flower, a gift.
.
He walks up to the girl selling honey,
she gives him her eyes,
her arms, her silence.
.
He walks up to the girl selling sugar,
she practically dies.
.
He walks up to the girl selling flowers,
calls her a rose, strips all her thorns
sticks her in a bouquet,
she fights, he breaks her,
calls her a dead thing,
she melts, is trampled
in the market.
.
There are four women in the joke,
none of them speak.
.
Realize that humor transcends
all boundaries; that laughter
is a language that knows no borders;
that this joke I heard in Arabic
.
hurts just a much in English,
and French, and any other dialect—
In the last version, the man is foaming
at the mouth with another girl’s jugular
around his teeth, his Adam’s apple
making excuses for him
from all the way
over there.
.
And the market is cheering,
the girl’s hair a bracelet around his wrist
and the market is still cheering,
or the audience, or the schoolyard,
or the other men
and he asks her name.
She says,
.
You left a box of your things
in my stomach.
Are you still trying to find
yourself on another girl’s
neck?
.
Last week, my seven-year-old brother
said that I am the reason he wakes up
every morning.
.
I give him a hug, he whispered to my mother,
works every time—
I saw fear in her eyes.
We laughed.
MAHMOUD, EMTITHAL, SISTERS’ ENTRANCE. KANSAS CITY, MO: ANDREWS MCMEEL PUBLISHING, 2018. 37-42
apologies for the . between lines in the poems – ignore them if you can – couldn’t get the post to space properly…wish I knew what I was doing…
A Word Aptly Spoken 