Lisa Suhair Majaj's Writings
View Lisa’s Books | Read Lisa’s other writings below.
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Poem
Dec.15.2012
Geographies of Light
My Daughter Asks Me What The Soul Is
I who have no certainty of belief,
how can I answer? Maybe the soul
is a small bird inside the chest,
beating its wings for the joy of freedom.
Maybe it’s a kernel of light, a pulsating star,
a small moon within us that waxes and wanes
without leaving the sky. Perhaps it’s the energy
that lightens our steps...
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Poem
Dec.14.2012
Geographies of Light
Provenance
I come from olive and oleander
pistachio, almond and fig
from the many tendrils of vine
I come from light, strong and splintered
from the khamsin browning the sky
from walls of gentled stone chiseling a face
I come from a scraped knee, a bloody palm
from trees climbed and fences scaled
from the metallic whir of roller skates across...
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Poem
Dec.14.2012
Geographies of Light
Doorway
The distance between one breath and another
is like the miles starlight travels to reach
my dreams. I write my way toward my death,
behind me a crumb trail of words erasing,
birds carrying morsels to their hungry chicks.
Years I’ve traveled the byways
of language, searching for that doorway --
light spilling over the...
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Poem
Dec.12.2012
Geographies of Light
Reunion
You’d think the dead would come at night:
shadows on a midnight wind,
shudders from the heart of mystery.
Instead they crowd in over my morning coffee,
hover insistently in the steam,
jostling their competing memories.
I tell them to come back later.
All those years of longing
and they think they can show up like creditors?
I...
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Dec.12.2012
South Atlantic Quarterly, Fall 2003
Journeys to Jerusalem (excerpt)
For almost forty years I have been going to Jerusalem. Although I grew up in Amman, my earliest memories tap into the hills and stones of Jerusalem, splinter in its rocky soil. This is true even though my coherent recollections of Jerusalem begin later, after I turned seven, the biblical age of...
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Lisa Suhair Majaj has one of the most necessary voices writing in the world today. Her exquisite poems sustain and hearten us, lift us out of the morass of deception and delusion. Her images and scenes offer up clean, brave truth. Here is the saving grace of honesty, dignity, and deep compassion. Here is a keen, elegant eye and a care wider than any single horizon. - Naomi Shihab Nye”
—back cover blurb
About Lisa
Lisa Suhair Majaj is a Palestinian-American poet, writer and critic. Author of the prize-winning poetry volume Geographies of Light (Del Sol Press, 2009), she has published her poetry and essays in over 90 journals and anthologies internationally. She is also...
Connections
Causes Lisa Majaj Supports
Playgrounds for Palestine
Middle East Children's Alliance
Princess Basma Center for Disabled Children
RAWI: Radius of Arab American...