Tuesday, April 16, 2024

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

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