In "tazahar / (pretend; تظاهر)," the speaker contemplates a future with “a prophet” that’s earned her father’s approval. Survival in America happens through tradition, reimagining a home country only “as [their] parents knew it.” The poem suspends the speaker in a perpetual in-between, the "blue eyes" of the street suggestive of a permanent, biological divide that—for all their efforts—cannot be mitigated. They still won't have "land to return to."
Ghinwa Jawhari on "Tazahar" |
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"Shakespeare as the Man in the Crowd""The parish was ‘a thriving, wealthy, bustling community of perhaps 550-650 people,' writes Marsh: ‘It was full of wealthy merchants, textile traders and leatherworkers, with a scattering of MPs, gentry and artists.’ These were Shakespeare’s neighbours, who lived and worked around him as he wrote Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Merchant of Venice."via SPECTATOR |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Rion Scott on Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays""I often think about the precision in Hayden's language. The words that take on the work of casting several meanings. 'What did I know, what did I know/of love’s austere and lonely offices?' I know all the words he used, but in this formation, with the repetition, the odd use of the word 'offices' and its proximity to the words 'austere' and 'lonely,' the words seem alien and strange in the best way." |
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We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality.
We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world. Black Lives Matter. |
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