Suheir Hammad
Suheir Hammad
Suheir Hammadis an American poet, author, performer, and political activist. She was born in Amman, Jordan. Her parents were Palestinian refugees who immigrated along with their daughter to Brooklyn, New York City when she was five years old. Her parents later moved to Staten Island...
NationalityPalestinian
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth25 October 1973
CountryPalestine, State of
independence
I am so old-fashioned. I've never lived with a man. I am completely about the independence of paying my own rent.
life-is casual collateral
Life is a right, not collateral or casual.
thinking feminism world
I think of feminism as a socially just and imaginative world.
heart broken saws
i cried when i saw those buildings collapse on themselves like a broken heart.
father writing mean
I understand now my father really thought he was doing me good. Education means a lot to Palestinians. We’ve become some of the most educated people in the world through our diaspora. We’ve had to be. When you ain’t got land, your degree may be your only solid ground. May father felt (feels) that being a doctor would give me security. How can I explain that I’m not safe from anything if I don’t write?
rome imagination machines
The machine will grind you down, but the machine is not bigger than the imagination. Rome fell in a day. We know this.
gun order broken
I do not know how bad a life has to break in order to kill. I have never been so hungry that I willed hunger. I have never been so angry as to want to control a gun over a pen. Not really. Even as a woman, as a Palestinian, as a broken human being. Never this broken.
doctors want path
I came from a traditional immigrant family where education meant there were only a few valid paths: doctor or lawyer - and I didnt want to be either one.
believe book
I've read too many books to believe what I am told.
running war light
War and tooth enameled salted lemon childhoods All colors run, none of us solid Don't look for shadow behind me I carry it within I live cycles of light and darkness
war breaths
Your war drum ain't / louder than this breath.
do-not-fear ifs
Do not fear what has blown up. If you must, fear the unexploded.
writing intention
Writing must always have intention because words have power.
war
I will not dance to your war drum!