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| Nathalie Handal, Sholeh Wolpé |
Poets
Nathalie Handal and Sholeh Wolpé
Read From New Works May 6
Palestinian
American Nathalie Handal and Iranian American Sholeh Wolpé are
two of the most dynamic young women poets who are not from the United
States, yet are part of a vibrant and growing Mideast literature in the
diaspora represented by American contemporary literature. On Friday evening,
May 6, 8 pm, the poets read from their new books, The Lives of Rain
(Interlink 2004) and The Scar Saloon (Red Hen Press 2004), at Beyond
Baroque Literary/Arts Center, in a special appearance organized by Levantine
Cultural Center.
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| The Lives of Rain | The Scar Saloon |
Nathalie Handal is a poet, playwright and writer who has lived in Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East. She finished her MFA at Bennington College and her post-graduate degree at the University of London. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines, literary journals and anthologies worldwide, and she has been featured on NPR, KPFK, and PBS Radio. She has directed and is the author of numerous plays; and of Traveling Rooms (Poetry CD), The NeverField (poetry book), and The Lives of Rain, a collection shortlisted for The Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry/The Pitt Poetry Series. Handal is the editor of The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, an Academy of American Poets bestseller and winner of the Pen Oakland/Josephine Miles award. Handal is presently editing two anthologies, Dominican Literature and Arab-American and Arab Diaspora Literature (Fall 2005); and co-editing along with Tina Chang and Ravi Shankar, Risen from East: An Anthology of South Asian, East Asian and Middle Eastern Poets. She is Poetry Books Review Editor for Sable (UK) and Associate Artist and Development Executive for the production company, The Kazbah Project. She teaches at Columbia University.
Nathalie Handal's poem, "Bethlehem"Poet and translator Sholeh Wolpé was born in Iran but spent most of her teen years in the Caribbean and Europe, ending up in the U.S. where she studied Radio-TV-Film at George Washington University in Washington DC. She then obtained an MA in the same field from Northwestern University and later, an MHS in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. In 1984 she moved to California where she produced documentaries for the health field. She later founded her medical business company, ZyQuest, which she still owns and operates. She has served on many boards of directors including the Redlands Bowl, Bonnes Meres, Tebot Bach and the Performance Loft. She has widely traveled through Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and speaks several languages. Sholeh Wolpé is the director and host of Poetry at the Loft, a successful poetry venue in Redlands. She divides her time between Redlands and Newport Beach.
Sholeh Wolpé's poem, Jerusalem 2001 (mp3)
On Friday evening, May 6, at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, Levantine Cultural Center presented poets Nathalie Handal and Sholeh Wolpé, who gave inspired readings from their new works, The Lives of Rain and The Scar Saloon, respectively. Below you'll find a sample poem from each book, along with comments about the poets. We encourage you to order your own copies, by clicking on the links below their respective books.
"Nathalie Handal's poetry is a global poetry of witness and wisdom. The weightiness of her subjects is delightfully at odds with the buoyancy of her cadence. In The Lives of Rain, Handal's crisp multi-lingual diction renders passion, intelligence, and despair, deftly chronicling the human condition in its vivid particulars."—Denise Duhamel
"In a world where cultures and religions are recklessly facing off, Sholeh Wolpé writes careful poems that cast a light on some of what we all hold in common."—Billy Collins
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Never Made it To Café Beirut; Nor, I Heard, Did You You told me that I should wait at the Lebanese border. You told me not to fear the Hezbollah, the gunshots, the missiles or grenades, told me that I would not see the shadows of corpses in the stained grey clouds, would not see the refugees and the UN trucks waiting for God. You told me that no one would be singing war songs, or speak of liberation, Saddam, Bush, the Israelis. You said nothing about the trumpet of flames, the shattering glass. You insisted, meet me at the Lebanese border. Told me to bring my favorite poems of Baudelaire and Gibran, my dreams wrapped in my black hair, my questions— the ones you could not answer at the time, the simple facts—your real name, age, nationality— and also why the night was held in siege, why the souks were so quiet, the mountains so quiet and the dead still struggling. And why I had to meet you at the border. —Nathalie Handal |
My
Brother at the Canadian Border For Omid On their way to Canada in a red Mazda, my brother and his friends, PhDs and litte sense, stopped at the border and the guard leaned forward, asked: Where you boys heading? My brother, Welcome to Canada poster in his eyes, replied: Mexico. The guard blinked, stepped back then forward, said: Sir, this is the Canadian border. My brother turned to his friend, grabbed the map from his hands, slammed it on his shaved head. You stupid idiot, he yelled, you've been holding the map upside down. In the interrogation room full of metal desks and chairs with wheels that squeaked and florescent light humming, bombarded with questions, and finally: Race? Stymied, my brother confessed: I really don't know, my parents never said, and the woman behind the desk widened her blue eyes to take in my brother's olive skin, hazel eyes, the blond fur that covered his arms and legs. Disappearing behind a plastic partition, she returned with a dusty book, thick as War and Peace, said: This will tell us your race. Where was your father born? she asked putting on her horn-rimmed glassed. Persia, he said. Do you mean I-ran? I ran, you ran, we all ran, he smiled. Where's your mother from? Voice cold as a gun. Russia, he replied. She put one finger on a word above a chart in the book, the other on a word at the bottom of the page, brought them together looking like a mad mathematician bent on solving the crimes of zero times zero divided by one. Her fingers stopped on a word. Declared: You are white. My brother stumbled back, a hand on his chest, eyes wide, mouth in O as in O my God! All these years and I did not know. Then to the room, to the woman and the guards: I am white I can go anywhere Do anything I can go to Canada and pretend it's Mexico At last, I am white and you have no reason to keep me here. —Sholeh Wolpé |
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