ABOUT THIS BOOK

At no other time in American history has our imagination been so engrossed with the Arab experience. An indispensable and historic volume, Inclined to Speak gathers together poems, from the most important contemporary Arab American poets, that shape and alter our understanding of this experience. These poems also challenge us to reconsider what it means to be American. Impressive in its scope, this book provides readers with an astonishing array of poetic sensibilities, touching on every aspect of the human condition. Whether about culture, politics, loss, art, or language itself, the poems here engage these themes with originality, dignity, and an unyielding need not only to speak, but also to be heard. Here are thirty-nine poets offering up 160 poems. Included in the anthology are Naomi Shihab Nye, Samuel Hazo, D. H. Melhem, Lawrence Joseph, Khaled Mattawa, Mohja Khaf, Matthew Shenoda, Kazim Ali, Nuar Alsadir, Fady Joudah, and Lisa Suhair Majaj. Charara has written a lengthy introduction about the state of Arab American poetry in the country today and short biographies of the poets and provided an extensive list of further readings.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Hayan Charara was a visiting professor of poetry writing at the University of Texas at Austin in 2005. Before that he taught in New York City. He is the author of two collections of poetry, The Sadness of Others and The Alchemist’s Diary. Born in Detroit, Michigan, to immigrant parents, he currently lives in Texas. He is also a woodworker.

REVIEWS

“Hayan Charara's rich anthology of Arab-American poetry in this moment couldn't be more timely; this book opens eyes, opens worlds.” —Mark Doty, author of Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems "Inclined to Speak is one of the most fruitfully diverse anthologies I have read in years, as its wealth of origins might lead one to expect. Here are poets in the high tradition of international Modernism, inheritors of Neruda, Hikmet, Celan, Ritsos and Darwish, who also deploy American poetry's plural possibilities, drawing from the same sources as Stevens, Oppen, Rukeyser, Brooks, Ginsberg, Rich. Some of these poets can think and sing in more than one language; they all can think beyond monoglot frontiers.” —Marilyn Hacker, author of Essays on Departures: New and Selected Poems, 1980–2005 “Inclined to Speak, especially in this Time, Place & Condition, when most of The Free World's Foreign Policy consists of Lies, Slander & Invasion is like Wolfbane when you hear the werewolf howling. It opens the door to a world breathing like our own, but adding dimensions that deepen our understanding of where we are and what time it is, that are immense, dreadful and wonderful.” —Amiri Baraka, author of Somebody Blew up America and Other Poems “These poems are a kaleidoscope of stories, visions, memories that offer a kind of transcendence we so desperately need right now. This is a marvelous collection that gives readers room to breathe, to fly, to wonder and to cry.” —Persis M.Karim, editor and contributing poet, Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
Introduction	000
Elmaz Abinader
	Living with Opposition	000
	What We Leave Behind	000
	This House, My Bones	000
	The Birds	000
Etel Adnan
	from Transcendence	000
	from The Arab Apocalypse	000
Saladin Ahmed
	Ghazal	000
	Over the Phone, One of Our Hero's Close Personal Homeboys Recounts Life in a 
College Town	000
	The Third World Werewolf Speaks to Our Hero of Life in the Financial Zone
	000
	Ibn Sina	000
Kazim Ali
	The Black Madonna at Chartres	000
	Journey	000
	The Year of Summer	000
	Gallery	000
Assef Al-Jundi
	Flying	000
	Nostalgic	000
	Apprentice	000
Alise Alousi
	Lipstick	000
	Mayfly	000
	What to Count	000
	Lynndie's Other Voice	000
Nuar Alsadir
	Bats	000
	The Riddle of the Shrink	000
	The Garden	000
Sinan Antoon
	Wrinkles: on the wind's forehead	000
	A Photograph	000
	A Letter	000
	Delving	000
	Sifting	000
Walid Bitar
	Looking You in the Back of the Head	000
	Survival of the Fittest	000
	Progress Report	000
	A Disposition of the Antiquities	000
	Under the Table	000
Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhr¿n
	Manos .17	000
	Mint	000
Hayan Charara
	Thinking American	000
	Washing My Father	0001
	Usage	000
Sharif S. Elmusa
	Flawed Landscape	000
	With New Englanders	000
	Roots	000
	Should You Wish to Stay	000
	Sun Lines	000
Hedy Habra
	Even the Sun Has Its Dark Side	000
	Milkweed	000
	Tea at Chez Paul's	000
Marian Haddad
	She Is Not the House of This Black Wing	000
	Malfunctioning FLOWTRON	000
	Resurrection	000
	I have no history here	000
Suheir Hammad
	Silence	000
	exotic	000
	First Writing Since	000
	mike check	000
Sam Hamod
	Dying with the Wrong Name	000
Lara Hamza
	Advice for Marriage	000
	My Mother Wore Miniskirts	000
	Behind Locked Doors, Part I	000
	Growing Up	000
	On Eating	000
Nathalie Handal
	The Warrior	000
	The Combatant and I	000
	The Blue Jacket	000
	from The Neverfield	000
Samuel Hazo
	Intifada	000
	September 11, 2001	000
	Just Words	000
	After Arlington	000
	The First Sam Hazo at the Last	000
	The Mutineer	000
	For Which It Stands	000
Lawrence Joseph
	It's Me Shouting at No One	000
	Do What You Can	000
	Curriculum Vitae	000
	Sand Nigger	000
	I Pay the Price	000
	Before Our Eyes	000
	Rubaiyat	000
	Inclined to Speak	000
Fady Joudah
	Morning Ritual	000
	At a Caf¿	000
	Sleeping Trees	000
	Additional Notes on Tea	000
Mohja Kahf
	My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears	000
	Hijab Scene #1	000
	Hijab Scene #2	000
	Postcards from Hajar, a Correspondence in Four Parts	000
Pauline Kaldas
	Bird Lessons	000
	Fraudulent Acts	000
	My Aunt's Kitchen	000
	What America Has to Offer	000
Lisa Suhair Majaj
	In Season	000
	It Wasn't Poetry	000
	Arguments	000
	I Remember My Father's Hands	000
Jack Marshall
	Walking Across Brooklyn Bridge	000
	Appalachia Suite	000
	Crane	000
	G; D	000
	The Home-Front	000
	Place in the Real	000
Khaled Mattawa
	Growing Up with a Sears Catalog in Benghazi, Libya	000
	Watermelon Tales	000
	The Bus Driver Poem	000
	The Road from Biloxi	000
	Echo & Elixir 1	000
	Echo & Elixir 3	000
D. H. Melhem
	New York Times, August 15, 1976 "As Lebanon Dies"	000
	Broadway Music	000
	On the tendency toward solipsism in literature	000
	from Rest in Love	000
	from Country: An Organic Poem	000
	September 11, 2001, World Trade Center, Aftermath	000
Philip Metres
	One more story he said In a restaurant in Amsterdam	000
	Ashberries: Letters	000
	A House Without	000
Haas H. Mroue
	Beirut Survivors Anonymous	000
	Arabes Despatriados	000
	Civil War	000
Adele Ne Jame
	Fieldwork, Devil's Lake, Wisconsin	000
	Anabelle's	000
	A Blessing	000
	A Love Story	000
Naomi Shihab Nye
	Different Ways to Pray	000
	The Art of Disappearing	000
	Famous	000
	Breaking My Favorite Bowl	000
	Blood	000
	The Small Vases from Hebron	000
	What Brings Us Out	000
	Jerusalem	000
Gregory Orfalea
	War	000
	The Bomb That Fell on Abdu's Farm	000
	The Spider	000
	On the One in the Crook of My Chest	000
Kevin Gerard Rashid
	Thug Nun	000
	A Loved One Will Do	000
	Keeping the Knife	000
	Lady Macbeth	000
Sekeena Shaben
	une demi-vierge	000
	no response	000
	the geometry of glass	000
Deema K. Shehabi
	Portrait of Summer in Bossey, 15 Years since Her Death	000
	Migrant Earth	000
Matthew Shenoda
	Relics	000
	A Prayer for My People	000
	In Passing	000
	Language	000
	From Scetis to Sohag	000
Zaid Shlah
	Thirty-Three Beads on a String	000
David Williams
	Almost One	000
	Privacy	000
	Breath	000
	In Praise of the Potato	000
Eliot Khalil Wilson
	Syrian Light and the Leisure of Moths	000
	Designing a Bird from Memory in Jack's Skin Kitchen	000
	Wedding Vows	000
	Someone Else Happy	000
	Ghazal: From Damascus to Donora	000
Further Reading	000
Acknowledgments	000

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