Pablo Neruda lived in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, and upon being asked why aren’t you writing poetry about lilacs and philosophy? he responded: come look at the blood in the streets Venid a ver la sangre por las calles. How can I write a POETIC TIMES post when a genocide is taking place against my people?
I’m writing you with a heavy stone in the place of my heart. That thing, a bundle of special muscular tissue that is able to generate its own electrical pace, has ossified during the past few weeks. It was petrified as my eyes witness the genocide of my people, and my limbs stay in their place: the posture upright and the demeanor calm as expected of me in these foreign lands. However, deep inside I’m collapsing. The center cannot hold, W.B.Yeats wrote more than 100 years ago. Things fall apart. I fall apart. So right now I write you out of the [dis]comfort of being in a european, warm classroom, with a heavy stone instead of a heart.
What are my recommended readings for this month:
- FANON FANON FANON FANON FANONF FRANZ FANON
- 100 years war on Palestine
- poems: Ways of Rebelling, How to write a poem in a time of war, The Second Coming, fuck your lecture on craft, my people are dying.
Words don’t aid me anymore. Semantics betray me, and all I have is a raw anger cooked over low fire by going on a run when the sun meets the edge of the sea, and bursting in tears to water my loved ones and the geraniums. All I have is raw, hard anger that I keep boiling in an attempt to make it maleable, but it’s resistent to such endeavors. My anger is raw and solid and can carry houses and ships upon its back: my anger only wants freedom.
AICHA BINT YUSIF 