Tag Archives: Mary Mother of Jesus

“Confession” – Poem by Tunisian American Poet Leila Chatti

15 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by in Poetry

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Tunisian American Poet Leila Chatti
Photo Credit: Leila Chatti Website

 

My Poetry Corner December 2019 features the poem “Confession” by Tunisian American poet and educator Leila Chatti, published in the anthology of poetry Halal If You Hear Me: BreakBeat Poets Vol. 3, edited by Fatimah Asghar and Safia Elhillo.

Born in 1990 in Oakland, California, Leila Chatti is one of four children of a Tunisian father and American mother. Her parents met when her father came to the United States to study for his PhD. Her father, the only one of seven children to leave Tunisia, maintained a close relationship with relatives by having his American-born family spend the summers with them.

Raised a Muslim by her father, Chatti began fasting for Ramadan at seven years old. Her experiences associated with fasting—hunger, restraint, obedience, resilience, lack—played a significant role in shaping the person she has become. In her poem, “Fasting in Tunis,” she recalls:

My God taught me hunger
is a gift, it sweetens
the meal. All day, I have gone without
because I know at the end I will
eat and be satisfied. In this way,
my desire is bearable. Continue reading →

“Mary Comes Down” – Poem by Jeannine M Pitas

02 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by in Poetry

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Immigrant Women in Line for Inspection at Ellis Island - New York

Photo Credit: The Newberry Digital Collections for the Classroom

 

My Poetry Corner September 2018 features the poem “Mary Comes Down” from the poetry collection Thank You For Dreaming by Jeannine M. Pitas. Native of Buffalo, New York, Pitas is a poet, writer, teacher, and Spanish-English literary translator. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto, Canada. She currently lives in Dubuque, Iowa, where she is an Assistant Professor of English and Spanish at the University of Dubuque.

Pitas dedicates the poems in this collection “to those who dream.” She writes in her poem, “thank you for dreaming”:

you have made it to this adopted country
with your heart intact
and you will use it to find people
like you, once silenced –
touched and held
by your dreams

In “Just after my mother tells me she voted for Trump,” Pitas questions her mother’s xenophobia. Had her mother forgotten that she had sent Jeannine to Polish Saturday School and that Jeannine’s Polish great-grandmother had refused to speak English?

America First, American carnage, make America
great again, pass the ban, build the wall,
Mama, Mamusia, tell me –
Where on earth do you think we came from?
Who the hell can we say we are?

Rejecting the divisive politics of xenophobia and hate, Pitas seeks connection with the Other. “I want to touch your life with mine,” she repeats twice in her poem, “To an Immigrant.” Continue reading →