But I'm from the middle of another country.
My cells are snow crystals with faults perpetually
breaking      fusing to others.
I see red       violet in an opal sky.

In autumn         the pies are pumpkin      cherry.
But for nine years I've written poems
near seawater      on beaches where
camels graze longing not to see seas.

But I want to see them.
Not storms swirling pages to ash.
So much red moving clockwise       counter.
Where are the clocks?  Time as pastoral.

The budding      bursting      the flight
of seeds       the spheres of hay
wound on land purged.
But all I see is dust         my hand in dust.

I'm writing in dust.
What I'm writing will become dust.
I'm the premonition
of dust exiled here.
from the book AURORA AMERICANA / Princeton University Press
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I was walking in the small village in Morocco where I lived and noticed that the earth was red, dried, and cracked. I imagined the surface of Mars to be this way. And I kept thinking about the idea of exile.

Myronn Hardy on "Sometimes I Believe I'm a Moroccan Poet Exiled on Mars"
Diana Khoi Nguyen
Ten Questions for Diana Khoi Nguyen

"It’s so hard to balance family and one’s work, especially when we do not view shared history in the same way. I think the gestation period was longer than I had anticipated because I hadn’t yet figured out a curated experience that felt right with respect to family fairness."

viaPOETS & WRITERS
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Cover image of Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi's book, A Friend's Kitchen
What Sparks Poetry:
Shook on Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi's "Asylum Papers"

"Working closely with Saddiq, we developed an intimate process of co-translation across continents. Starting with Bryar’s initial cribs, we returned to the Arabic together, experimenting and reworking the transfer of some poems’ complicated syntax into English and unpacking the poems’ many allusions. Because of our close relationship with Saddiq, we were able both to clarify imagery specific to the Sudanese context and to seek his approval for some of the bolder leaps we hoped would make his poetry sing in English as it does in Arabic."
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