Suheir Hammad

Suheir Hammad reads her poem Breaks clustered with dancer Stephanie Lim and choreography by Brinda Guha:

RUPTURA EN RACIMO

Toda la Historia Sagrada, prohibida.
Libros no escritos predijeron el futuro, proyectaron el pasado
pero mi cabeza desenvuelve lo que parece no tener límite,
la violencia creativa del hombre.

¿Qué hijo, el de quién, será?
¿Qué hijo varón perecerá un nuevo día?
La muerte de nuestros niños nos impulsa.
Acariciamos cadáveres.
Lloramos mujeres, es complicado.
A las putas les pegan a diario.
Se obtienen beneficios, se ignora a los profetas.
Guerra y diente esmaltaron, echaron sal, a infancias de limón.
Todos los colores corren, nadie es firme.

No busques sombra detrás de mí. La llevo dentro.
Vivo ciclos de luz y oscuridad.
El ritmo es mitad silencio.
Lo veo ahora, nunca fui una y no la otra.
Enfermedad, salud, violencia tierna: pienso ahora que nunca fui pura.
Antes que forma fui tormenta, ciega, tonta – aún lo soy.
La Humanidad se contrae ciega, maligna.
Nunca fui pura.

Niña consentida antes de madurar.
El lenguaje no puede reducirme.
Experimento de manera exponencial.
Todo es todo.
Una mujer pierde 15, puede que 20, miembros de su familia.
Una mujer pierde seis.
Una mujer pierde su cabeza.
Una mujer busca en los escombros.
Una mujer se alimenta de basura.
Una mujer se pega un tiro en la cara.
Una mujer le pega un tiro a su marido.
Una mujer se amarra.
Una mujer da a luz a un bebé.
Una mujer da a luz a las fronteras.
Una mujer ya no cree que el amor la encontrará algún día.
Una mujer no lo creyó nunca.
¿Adónde van los corazones de los refugiados?
Rotos, insultados, colocados en un lugar de donde no son,
no quieren que no se les vea.
Enfrentados a la ausencia.
Lloramos al otro o no significamos nada de nada.

Mi espina se curva en espiral.
El precipicio corre hacia y desde los seres humanos.
Dejamos atrás bombas de racimo.
Minas de facto.
Dolor en llamas.
Cosecha tabaco contaminado.
Cosecha bombas.
Cosecha dientes de leche.
Cosecha palmas, humo.
Cosecha testigos, humo.
Resoluciones, humo.
Salvación, humo.
Redención, humo.

Respira.

No temas
a lo que ha estallado.

Si has de hacerlo,
teme a lo que no ha explotado aún.

Traducción del inglés: Laura Casielles

Extraído de AISH, donde se puede encontrar más información sobre la autora y su trabajo.

BREAKS CLUSTERED

All holy history banned.
Unwritten books predicted future, projected past,
but my head unwraps around what appears limitless,
man’s creative violence.

Whose son shall it be?
Which male child will perish a new day?
Our boys’ death galvanize.
We cherish corpses.
We mourn women, complicated.
Bitches get beat daily.
Profits made, prophets ignored.
War and tooth enameled salted lemon childhoods.
All colors run, none of us solid.

Don’t look for shadow behind me. I carry it within.
I live cycles of light and darkness.
Rhythm is half silence.
I see now, I never was one and not the other.
Sickness, health, tender violence, I think now I never was pure.
Before form I was storm, blind, ign’ant - still am.
Humanity contracted itself blind, malignant.
I never was pure.

Girl spoiled before ripened.
Language cannot math me.
I experience exponentially.
Everything is everything.
One woman loses 15, maybe 20, members of her family.
One woman loses six.
One woman loses her head.
One woman searches rubble.
One woman feeds on trash.
One woman shoots her face.
One woman shoots her husband.
One woman straps herself.
One woman gives birth to a baby.
One woman gives birth to borders.
One woman no longer believes love will ever find her.
One woman never did.
Where do refugee hearts go?
Broken, dissed, placed where they are not from, don’t want to be missed.
Faced with absence.
We mourn each one or we mean nothing at all.

My spine curves spiral.
Precipice running to and running from human beings.
Cluster bombs left behind.
De facto land mines.
Smoldering grief.
Harvest contaminated tobacco.
Harvest bombs.
Harvest baby teeths.
Harvest palms, smoke.
Harvest witness, smoke.
Resolutions, smoke.
Salvation, smoke.
Redemption, smoke.

Breathe.

Do not fear
what has blown up.

If you must,
fear the unexploded.

Suheir Hammad (1973) is a Palestinian-American poet, author and political activist. She was born in Amman, Jordan. Her parents were Palestinian refugees who immigrated along with their daughter to Brooklyn, New York City when she was five years old. Her parents later moved to Staten Island.

As an adolescent growing up in Brooklyn, Hammad was heavily influenced by Brooklyn's vibrant Hip-Hop scene. She had also absorbed the stories her parents and grandparents had told her of life in their hometown of Lydda, before the 1948 Palestinian exodus, and of the suffering they endured afterward, first in the Gaza Strip and then in Jordan. From these disparate influences Hammad was able to weave into her work a common narrative of dispossession, not only in her capacity as an immigrant, a Palestinian and a Muslim, but as a woman struggling against society's inherent sexism and as a poet in her own right. 

From Wikipedia