Lisa Suhair Majaj

Lisa Suhair Majaj (born 1960) is a Palestinian-American poet and scholar. Quotes My writing process is generally a bit haphazard. I carry notebooks around to capture ideas, observations, phrases, images, chunks of freewriting. I shift to the computer to do more substantive writing and work on craft issues. I always generate multiple drafts of pieces (keeping all drafts in a separate folder), and often experiment with form in different versions to see what fits the text best. Interview with LitHub I find inspiration in anything that sparks attention and emotion and associations—an object, a news article, a natural scene, a sound, an odor. Going for walks sharpens my awareness as well as freeing my mind to wander. I think losing my parents so early, and keeping so many mementos from them around me in my daily life, helped shape my understanding of how meaning is embedded in the simplest of things. I use potholders my mother crocheted, keep my dad’s paperweight on my desk, and think of them daily. Interview with LitHub Geographies of Light (2009) Fragments from the poetry collection Now we walk out into the tunnel of daysand a million memories rustle till the moon rises,the night opens,and all the stars shine out. The sun will rise again tomorrow,vigilant and weary as hope. May we all fit together like this: trees, birds, sky,people, separate elements in a living portrait,outlines smoothed by the forgiving washof lingering light. Whatever the skins we live in,the names we choose, the gods we claim or disavow,may we be like grains of sand on the beach at night:a hundred million separate particlescreating a single expanse on which to lie backand study the stars. And may we remember the generosityof light: how it travels through unimaginable darkness,age after age, to light our small human night. Bless poetry books that cross oceansin battered envelopes,bearing small flames of words. hopesfor peace: hand clasped in handfirmer than fist on a gunor club, hand raised in greetingstronger than hand raised for violence Today his words surround mewith the quiet intensity of growing things,roots planted a long time agolacing the distances of my heart. See how we save even the broken bits of pottery,fitting fragments togetheralong jagged lines to remember you Did my parents knowthat what they planted,roots against the drought,would survive? consider the infinite fragility of an infant's skull,how the bones lie soft and openonly time knitting them shut consider a delicate porcelain bowlhow it crushes under a single blow-in one moment whole years disappear The distance between one breath and anotheris like the miles starlight travels to reachmy dreams. so I hoard memoriessort them for seeds to plantpray they root Once she could have held anything steadyand safe: a glass of tea, her brother's baby.Now her hands shake at the weight of a fork. ground resilient beneath our feet, skyglimmeringbetween branches of trees older than any of us. She took her slice of lifethen gave without measuringor counting what's left butshards of memorysmoothed and hoarded,shrapnel griefs,a few regrets? Who knew the past would follow us so far,years collapsing like an ancient accordion,scraps of memory tucked like torn photographsinto the sockets of our eyes? Remember the splintered staccatoof bullets against rock, the way dust rosein the stunned aftershock of silence? We learned to let our faces hideour selves, to speak our story in a privatetongue, the past a shadow in our bones. No matter how far you've come, remember:the starting line is always closer than you think. soon syllables will fall from her lipsthe first rain how a word transforms usseedling taking delicate holdor a weed choking the tender plantsnews enters us and puts down roots These words are the weightcupped in our palms:the small broken note of freedom. Part of it hides behind the headlineswhere this shard of the story will never be told. Quotes about Lisa Suhair Majaj 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 External links Category:1960 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century poets from the United States Category:Women authors from the United States Category:Poets from Palestine Category:Women born in the 1960s Category:Women from Palestine