Poem of the Week: Lisa Suhair Majaj

Guidelines

If they ask you what you are,

say Arab. If they flinch, don't react,

just remember your great-aunt's eyes.

If they ask you where you come from,

say Toledo. Detroit. Mission Viejo.

Fall Springs. Topeka. If they seem confused,

help them locate these places on a map,

then inquire casually, Where are you from?

Have you been here long? Do you like this country?

If they ask what you eat,

don't dissemble. If garlic is your secret friend,

admit it. Likewise, crab cakes.

If they say you're not American,

don't pull out your personal,

wallet-sized flag. Instead, recall

the Bill of Rights. Mention the Constitution.

Wear democracy like a favorite garment:

comfortable, intimate.

If they wave newspapers in your face and shout,

stay calm. Remember everything they never learned.

Offer to take them to the library.

If they ask you if you're white, say it depends.

Say no. Say maybe. If appropriate, inquire,

Have you always been white, or is it recent?

If you take to the streets in protest,

link hands with whomever is beside you.

Keep your eye on the colonizer's maps,

geography's twisted strands, the many colors

of struggle. No matter how far you've come, remember:

the starting line is always closer than you think.

If they ask how long you plan to stay, say forever.

Console them if they seem upset. Say, don't worry,

you'll get used to it. Say, we live here. How about you?

-Lisa Suhair Majaj

From Geographies of Light (Del Sol Press, 2009)

Used by permission.

Lisa Suhair Majaj is the author of Geographies of Light (winner of the Del Sol Press Poetry Prize) and co-editor of three volumes of literary essays: Intersections: Gender, Nation and Community in Arab Women's Novels (Syracuse University Press, 2002), Etel Adnan: Critical Essays on the Arab-American Writer and Artist (McFarland Publishing, 2002) and Going Global: The Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers. (NY: Garland/Routledge, 2000). She publishes poetry, creative nonfiction and critical essays in journals and anthologies the US, Europe and the Middle East, and has read at venues such as London's Poetry International. She currently lives in Cyprus.

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Women, War, and Peace - Curated by Sarah Browning

The following poem excerpts are samples of what can be found in the latest edition of On The Issues, of which Split This Rock Director Sarah Browning is the Poetry Co-Editor. Please click over to read the rest.

There is misery by the busload. Mothers scrounge
for bits of bread. Children lose the race with flames.
We can't make sense of paper, rock or scissors
or velvet political games.
- From "All There Is, Washington DC" by Carmen Calatayud


piestewa is survived by two young children by her mother and father in lieu of flowers jessica lynch who was a long-time ally and confidante applied to abc's extreme makeover home edition to fulfill lori's dream of a home where her entire family could live together and be happy and so while the piestewa family was sent off on a paid vacation to disney- world ty pennington and his crew went to work purchasing land and building a home for them when a hopi is deceased she comes back to the home mesas
- From "piestewa, lori" by Meg Hamill



I kick this dream over
like a kerosene can,

galloping flame. I reach
for medicine, sleepless mare.
- From "Horse and Fire Dream" by Kathy Engel


No is the perimeter of stubborn cactus
springing up around destroyed villages.
You can bulldoze houses, evict or kill the inhabitants,
but the thorns of memory can’t be eliminated.
 - From "No" by Lisa Suhair Majaj