Suheir Hammad Stifles Silence
April 29th, 2009 § 1 Comment
Suheir Hammad
I had the pleasure of attending a poetry reading by Suheir Hammad and two other fabulous writers (Ruth Forman and Uchechi Kalu) this weekend. The event was hosted by Hedgebrook in Seattle, Washington.
Suheir is a Palestinian born New York based writer. Her way with words is heavily influenced by narratives of Palestinian displacement and tones of the hip hop that she was exposed to while she was growing up in Brooklyn.
I also had the opportunity to sit down with Suheir and friends following the reading. To call her a strong, passionate, intelligent woman is simply an understatement. Her messages provide her audience with emotional entries into what it means to be a Palestinian refugee in America and her voice continues to stand out regardless of how often people try to suppress it.
Suheir also played lead in Annemarie Jacir’s 2008 film Salt of this Sea. Be sure to catch a showing if you can!
Below you will find Suheir reading a revision of her breakout poem “First Writing Since” which was written following the events of September 11th, 2001.
Thanks for posting this account and moving video, one my favourites. As you mentioned, her spoken word performances are influenced by hip-hop and a few of them are freely available on the superb hiphop Free the P album (156MB), including the memorable ‘This is to Certify’, ‘Libertad’ and ‘In America’.