On Wednesday Oct 30, 2019, Al-Bustan concluded its three-part Words From Home Poetry Series, featuring new publications from Palestinian poets from the diaspora, Nathalie Handal, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and Ahmad Almallah. Cosponsored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Middle East Center and Near East Languages & Civilizations Department, The Rotunda and Slought Gallery, the series explored these poets’ relationships with and the meaning of home. The use of language, both Arabic and English, and identity, both Arab and other, wove the experiences of the three poets together despite their significantly varied backgrounds, styles, and goals.
Ahmad Almallah, a Philadelphia-based Palestinian poet and scholar of classical Arabic poetry, read from his first book, Bitter English, on September 17 th at The Rotunda. Self-described as an “autobiography-in-verse” Almallah’s work provides vignettes into the world of the Arab immigrant experience through his own relationship with memory, family, and language.
Almallah’s style of reading mirrored the progression of poems in his book which traces the trajectory of his relationship with English from bitter discomfort, as he struggles with topics of memory and identity, to the successful expression of his current life. Likewise, as he became accustomed to the stage Almallah grew in confidence as the poems shifted from expressions of discomfort to intimate descriptions of family and everyday experience. The awkward relationship he has with writing in English while the words of classical poets such as Al- Mutanabbi and al-Maarri echo in the background further amplified the tension Almallah describes throughout as he navigate daily life in the English speaking world. His study of and love for the classical poetry was palpable as he answered questions after the reading. For Almallah and for many across the Arab world, poetry has served as an almost universal language of memory as all are taught poems from classical authors and their legacy still permeates the writing and music of contemporary Arab culture. The experience of discomfort, longing, and transformation so skillfully described throughout Almallah’s poetry seemed to resonate with the audience as it speaks poignantly to one of the most important issues of our day: how immigrants can make home without forgetting themselves and their origins in a world made small by technology and travel.
On October 3, Seattle-based poet, essayist, and translator, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha read from her second book, Letters from the Interior, at Slought Gallery. A departure from her earlier work, Letters from the Interior is a chapter book comprised of poems addressing her childhood Arabic instructor Miss. Sahar. The letters explore ways in which the forgotten voices of women are truly inheritors and protectors of heritage and tradition during times of war and displacement.
Through a semi-fictionalized account, Khalaf Tuffaha’s words effortlessly intertwined personal experience, cultural hallmarks, and contemporary culture into a melodic soundtrack for the Arab world. Placing the transmission of the Arabic language at center stage she discussed the relationship between history and personal narrative in the Palestinian context. As she writes, “As you string barbed wire across memory”, we develop an interior home carried beyond and between the physical sites called home, passing down recipes, stories, and traditions across artificial borders for the generations to come.
On October 30, we were especially pleased to host poet and professor Nathalie Handal for a return visit to Philadelphia. We have featured Handal for multiple readings and performances, including a week long residency at Northeast High School in 2010.
In the afternoon Handal visited Northeast High School for a workshop with immigrant and refugee students. She guided the students through a collective poetry exercise encouraging them to express their identity through words and visuals.
In the evening, as she read from her latest book Life in a Country Album at Slought Gallery, Handal spoke about her own background as a Palestinian from Bethlehem, born in Haiti and having lived in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Her own polyvocal sense of identity and her endeavors to find a firm footing for herself provide Handal with a dynamic perspective on immigration, the Palestinian relationship to home, and the connection we feel to tradition while forging a new path for ourselves. Issues of identity were writ large as each album of the book explored ideas of citizenship, hybridity, home and, borders.
During the Q&A Handal explained the process by which she felt empowered to seek her own sense of self independent of but connected to her origins, her traditions and the ways in which this provided her with a sense of freedom to no longer ask permission to feel or to write about who she is and the life she lives. Like many of the students that morning and in her own classes there is a desire to belong, especially in a world without firm footing or a mother tongue but only “hyphenated language”, as Handal says. While Life in a Country Album certainly strikes a strong chord connecting with those who have immigrated, it really describes a universal human experience of self-discovery in a world of change.
