November 25, 2022

Amira Antoun Salameh

MY BODY IS MINE

In that dark, the light
 
strike startled my mirror.
 
I saw nudity—by accident—
 
& did not understand myself
 
without fabric.
 
Thunder boomed & rain released 
 
bright streaks—again, again. &,
 
I froze. Stared
 
openly—exhausted 
 
by dark devouring 
 
lightning, my mirror,
 
me.
 
 
Translated from the Arabic by Jennifer Jean and Yafa al-Shayeb
 

from Rattle #77, Fall 2022
Tribute to Translation

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Amira Antoun Salameh, from Damascus in Syria, has published and won awards for her poetry, children’s stories, and puppet theater; as well, she writes theatrical scripts and directs plays for the Cultural Center in Latakia. | Jennifer Jean & Yafa al-Shayeb: “Jordanian writer Yafa al-Shayab and I have co-translated Amira Salameh’s poem for a bilingual anthology that I am co-editing along with poet Kirun Kapur—which is tentatively titled: Other Paths for Shahrazad: Contemporary Poems by Arab Women. This is a project of the Her Story Is collective. HSI is led by independent women writers and artists from primarily Iraq and the United States; it promotes projects aimed at expanding linguistic, artistic, and cultural boundaries in response to global conflict, with a focus on centralizing the experience of women. We believe our process transforms established power structures, creates new grounds for learning, and builds a community of equals across borders.”

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June 22, 2021

Jennifer Jean

HUMPBACK SWALLOWS LOBSTER DIVER IN PROVINCETOWN

it’s a great white no whale yeah it’s dark it’s
up to him I’m in or out like those injured jungle nights

after the Sansa smash
in Costa Rica or being dragged to sea from Race Point spinies

tread tread treading
and every 10 seconds is a damn day dog gone

I’m gonna miss Bibi bad break my legs or die I see the sand
in her hair from Sunday miss our damn

kids I don’t decide the dockmaster
wouldn’t let up about Mike! un-fuckin-tangle

your aluminum nets from my shit! and I decided not to shit
Josiah’s gonna get the blame the sweat stain

on the front of that same damn red T he won’t
give it up he’s the shit 10 seconds and the almighty

every last body told me to go
to Joe’s over on the dune side of town and draw a line say

Stop grifting our gear! The Ja’n J is mine and get your own boat
if you want to lobster! but I had to go on this damn

dark dive with no bottom to the 10 second
day I don’t decide something’s muscling me

all over then my life’s like one of Ma’s best painted “Packard skies”
and spit into it and out of this

young buck baleen deciding I can do whatever the hell
I want I want to buy Joe a Bud and not

because it tastes like destiny but I’m happy
to say it will

from Poets Respond
June 22, 2021

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Jennifer Jean: “I love that this story proves the veracity of a particular biblical miracle. And that Mike the lobster diver is a stand-in for every one of us coming out of the pandemic lockdown—from our own version of Joseph Campbell’s ‘belly of the whale’ portion of the Hero’s Journey: we were in that dark forever—it seemed—and now we’re out and life is new and full of possibility, opportunity, do-overs. We can be bruised but healing and smiling. We can love everyone if we want. I don’t know if that’s what Mike’s done, of course, but that’s what biblical Jonah does. That’s what I’m trying to do.” (web)

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November 4, 2016

Jennifer Jean

#CARRYTHATWEIGHT

Columbia senior Emma Sulkowicz has been hauling her own dorm mattress around campus every day [because] the student she says raped her is still free to attend the school without formal consequences.
—Slate

My mom was broken by five
or six guys one dawn before I was born.
So that’s gotta be the weight of
a king. & she carries that. Carried that
right past the Hollywood police station on Burbank around noon.
I consider carrying our queen-sized around our apartment
like those “Students for Emma!” from around the globe.
But I’m just a weaker
upper body.
I take on my daughter’s futon.
My mom got it for her at Ikea. It’s a lightweight.
& the idea
is to lug it for about an hour. At home.
Write as I go. Some kind of science, some kind of art.
In order
to relate.
My daughter moves stuffed dogs & pigs off her quilt,
helps me slide the pony-colored twin onto my spine.
She makes me a tortoise.
She takes pictures, Smile. Smile.
Smile. I don’t
think I can bear it a minute. It’s hers.
My daughter’s, my mother’s, all
the grand hers.
& I won’t
where I teach. I teach
so I’d mulled hauling it to the University. But
taking on a big thing like that? Sweating, bending
under that?
You know what lives under a bed.
All the weight
of my frame thumps the ground in the kitchen
as I dump the thing,
hard. My daughter rolls on it, giggles. My pen’s gone, &
my mom was broken by five
or six guys one dawn before I was born.

from Rattle #53, Fall 2016
Tribute to Adjuncts

[download audio]

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Jennifer Jean: “I believe poetry is a means to real healing, compassion, and change. To these ends, I’ve been teaching Free2Write poetry workshops to sex-trafficking and labor-trafficking survivors so they can tell their stories their way. I believe it is with non-traditional, often vulnerable writers that poetry’s true power can be realized. I was once very vulnerable—I lived in foster care from seven months to seven years old—during and after which I experienced my share of objectification. Poetry helped me contain, explore, and digest these traumatic incidents. My hope is that poetry can help my Free2Write students do the same. My hope is that through this writing Americans can know there’s an awful quick slide from objectification to war, bigotry, and even modern-day slavery.” (website)

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February 5, 2016

Jennifer Jean

BIRD

For survivors of abuse & trafficking residing at the Breaking Free safe house in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Rock Wren, Godwit, Bobolink?
What are we looking at?
What’s beaked & broken
free from
a classic, iron
bell cage? With a blown out hole
opposite a latched door? No
thickened keratin could peck that well. No
claw-turned-fist
busted up that joint.
Inside, she was
key, she was cheep, she was: a flipped
bad finger. Now—this bird wings

as every bird
stepping out
of “the life.” With no credit,
no reference, & a little self-
love. What are we looking at?

A second wind. The flight
inside the creature
that is the holy, eternal
verb. Is:
who bent the metal. Is: the mother
of a lighter

bone. The kind
that Terror
cannot allow.

from Rattle #50, Winter 2015

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Jennifer Jean: “I believe poetry is a means to real healing, compassion, and change. To these ends, I’ve been teaching Free2Write poetry workshops to sex-trafficking and labor-trafficking survivors so they can tell their stories their way. I believe it is with non-traditional, often vulnerable writers that poetry’s true power can be realized. I was once very vulnerable—I lived in foster care from seven months to seven years old—during and after which I experienced my share of objectification. Poetry helped me contain, explore, and digest these traumatic incidents. My hope is that poetry can help my Free2Write students do the same. My hope is that through this writing Americans can know there’s an awful quick slide from objectification to war, bigotry, and even modern-day slavery.” (web)

Jennifer Jean is the guest on Rattlecast #76! Click here to watch live …

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