FINAL PORTRAIT OF THE SUDANESE
—from Rattle #59, Spring 2018
Tribute to Immigrant Poets
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Dalia Elhassan: “These poems were born out of years of recognizing difference and paying close attention to the way the world functioned around me as a young Sudanese woman in the diaspora and the complex identities that live on my body. Growing up, it felt like the world I was most familiar with knew very little of Sudanese people or Sudanese culture, lifestyle, art, song, pain, triumph. Being Sudanese in the diaspora is an experience of being asked to identify oneself on a daily basis. My racial, ethnic, and gendered constitution has led me to believe in poetry as a space for radical change and transformation. This space fosters community, self-compassion, and the courage to mark one’s own existence. I have turned to poetry as a space to draw from and create my own reality in the face of oppressive structures and institutions that seek to take that power away from me. The only Sudan I will ever understand a connection to is the Sudan I can find in art and in poetry. Poets like Safia Elhillo, whose work is deeply familiar and feels like home to me, remind me often that the country I build in my poetry is the only country I have an allegiance to. Poetry blurs the lines between the political and the personal. Poetry speaks to and gives voice both to what can be said and what hides in the fabric of silence. In a poem, I can write my experiences into consciousness. I never want to forget or be made to forget who I am and what I came from. I never want us to think of ourselves, as Sudanese people in the diaspora and in Sudan, as a forgotten people. I never want to be ashamed of being Sudanese ever again.” (web)
