Zeina Azzam, Alexandria’s poet laureate, whose parents fled Palestine, creates potent art from the devastation in Gaza- with her poem "Write My Name"

Zeina Azzam, the 2022 Poet
Laureate for the city of Alexandria, Virginia. (Courtesy, City of Alexandria/Jeff Norman)

April 14, 2024

Alexandria Poet Laureate Zeina Azzam first found it difficult to write about Palestine amid the ongoing conflict that started last October.

Now, her words about the children of Gaza have been translated into five languages and recited everywhere, from senators’ offices to churches, from vigils to protests.

Azzam says she was moved to pen the poem “Write My Name” after reading a CNN report about parents in Gaza who had resorted to writing their children’s names on their legs to help identify them should they or their children be killed.

More than 12,300 children in Gaza have been killed since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said that more children have been killed in Gaza in the last four months than children killed in the last four years of war globally...   READ MORE   https://patabook.com/news/2024/04/14/alexandrias-poet-laureate-whose-parents-fled-palestine-creates-potent-art-from-the-devastation-in-gaza/ 

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

 

2023 Arab American news: Palestinian Cry from Gaza, ‘Write My Name,’ Goes Viral in Poem by Palestinian American

https://www.arabamerica.com/palestinian-cry-from-gaza-write-my-name-goes-viral-in-poem-by-palestinian-american/

 

Zeina Azzam's poem- Write My Name

 

Write my name on my leg, Mama

Use the black permanent marker

with the ink that doesn’t bleed

if it gets wet, the one that doesn’t melt

if it’s exposed to heat

 

Write my name on my leg, Mama

Make the lines thick and clear

Add your special flourishes

so I can take comfort in seeing

my mama’s handwriting when I go to sleep

 

Write my name on my leg, Mama

and on the legs of my sisters and brothers

This way we will belong together

This way we will be known

as your children

 

Write my name on my leg, Mama

and please write your name

and Baba’s name on your legs, too

so we will be remembered

as a family

 

Write my name on my leg, Mama

Don’t add any numbers

like when I was born or the address of our home

I don’t want the world to list me as a number

I have a name and I am not a number

 

Write my name on my leg, Mama

When the bomb hits our house

When the walls crush our skulls and bones

our legs will tell our story, how

there was nowhere for us to run

 

—Zeina Azzam