Suheir Hammad

Suheir Hammad
New York

Recent works: Def Poetry Jam on Broadway (co-writer) 2003; Born Palestinian, Born Black, 1996; Drops of This Story, 1996

Favorite Writers: June Jordan, Stevie Wonder, Pablo Neruda.

Quote: My home is colorful, a haven from a graying world. While I was always happy to see an Arab name in an anthology or a journal, I often felt like there was no one who knew what it felt like to be from poor, brown people who grew up in cities around folks from different cultures. I love Arab music and the grace of it. That music has affected not only my work on the page, but my everyday vernacular as well. But it is still a disrupted Arabic, the Arabic of the Palestinian diaspora.

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