WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.920 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.920 --> 00:00:06.450 align:middle line:84% So Wanting in Arabic, the first edition, came out in 2002. 00:00:06.450 --> 00:00:08.640 align:middle line:84% And these poems were written in the context 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:15.470 align:middle line:84% of a wish for something that I, at the time, 00:00:15.470 --> 00:00:20.060 align:middle line:84% jokingly called "Queerarabia," written between, I guess, 00:00:20.060 --> 00:00:22.790 align:middle line:84% the first Gulf War and the second, 00:00:22.790 --> 00:00:24.680 align:middle line:84% in the shadow of the First Gulf War 00:00:24.680 --> 00:00:28.400 align:middle line:84% and in the anticipation of the second. 00:00:28.400 --> 00:00:32.450 align:middle line:84% And they're about finding queer Arabs, 00:00:32.450 --> 00:00:37.970 align:middle line:84% and not having had that before, and also knowing 00:00:37.970 --> 00:00:43.130 align:middle line:84% a revivified Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment 00:00:43.130 --> 00:00:47.990 align:middle line:84% happening in myriad ways in the world around me 00:00:47.990 --> 00:00:53.870 align:middle line:84% and not knowing how to hold that utopic queer 00:00:53.870 --> 00:00:58.340 align:middle line:84% possibility and that geopolitical fact in tandem. 00:00:58.340 --> 00:01:05.810 align:middle line:84% So "from her home, wander loves uncanny, away, you. 00:01:05.810 --> 00:01:06.620 align:middle line:90% Is it past? 00:01:06.620 --> 00:01:09.170 align:middle line:90% Whose to tear memory away, you? 00:01:09.170 --> 00:01:13.730 align:middle line:84% Stolen upon thought, I'll not see the end of this. 00:01:13.730 --> 00:01:18.590 align:middle line:84% Ya aa'yni, turn your gaze away from me, you. 00:01:18.590 --> 00:01:21.200 align:middle line:84% A girl's hand may stop unexpected bleeding 00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:25.580 align:middle line:84% over what rest was, eye to eye between away, 00:01:25.580 --> 00:01:30.620 align:middle line:84% you, fall mistaking what looks she tosses for salvation. 00:01:30.620 --> 00:01:34.940 align:middle line:84% Beware of such boasts, what they give too freely away, you. 00:01:34.940 --> 00:01:38.990 align:middle line:84% Unhinge the doors with talk of children, your double war. 00:01:38.990 --> 00:01:41.120 align:middle line:90% Send memories, limbs, flailing. 00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:42.560 align:middle line:90% Who cast peace away? 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:43.760 align:middle line:90% You? 00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:46.970 align:middle line:84% Hear the sound of rain on hotel window, 00:01:46.970 --> 00:01:50.930 align:middle line:84% so stark it bleeds like waking, like Hitchcock, 00:01:50.930 --> 00:01:53.780 align:middle line:84% blinds so low it's too dark to read. 00:01:53.780 --> 00:01:56.360 align:middle line:84% Hear the train breaking, haunts further out. 00:01:56.360 --> 00:01:58.010 align:middle line:90% The frame broke hours ago. 00:01:58.010 --> 00:02:02.690 align:middle line:84% What are Effrit to make Twin Towers glow, too dark to read? 00:02:02.690 --> 00:02:05.600 align:middle line:84% Disfigured, losing specific dimensions, 00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:07.280 align:middle line:90% failing in their finitude. 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:11.420 align:middle line:84% What world is mirrored, too dark to read, as fireworks 00:02:11.420 --> 00:02:12.620 align:middle line:90% roaming compulsive? 00:02:12.620 --> 00:02:16.850 align:middle line:84% The mind makes interior what was your house or tomb, charred 00:02:16.850 --> 00:02:19.010 align:middle line:90% terribly, too dark to read. 00:02:19.010 --> 00:02:22.220 align:middle line:84% There your girl becomes pursuit, embers a route 00:02:22.220 --> 00:02:25.820 align:middle line:84% more circuitous, her elliptical and fraying parabola. 00:02:25.820 --> 00:02:29.210 align:middle line:84% Too dark to read, such hyperbole of desire. 00:02:29.210 --> 00:02:31.640 align:middle line:84% Fire returns void in its avoidance. 00:02:31.640 --> 00:02:35.570 align:middle line:84% Brute motor repetition writes parables too dark to read. 00:02:35.570 --> 00:02:39.920 align:middle line:84% Into the wild, some cliche of the wild. 00:02:39.920 --> 00:02:44.030 align:middle line:84% It's not the war we flee, north from Toronto. 00:02:44.030 --> 00:02:46.910 align:middle line:84% That year, we're not at war, gone to cottage 00:02:46.910 --> 00:02:48.530 align:middle line:90% like white folks. 00:02:48.530 --> 00:02:52.370 align:middle line:84% Composed queer idylls break our fast at the colonial, 00:02:52.370 --> 00:02:55.310 align:middle line:84% stock up at Nassr, say that's not war. 00:02:55.310 --> 00:02:59.420 align:middle line:84% With our weight in lebne, mint, parsley, burgle, beans for ful, 00:02:59.420 --> 00:03:00.410 align:middle line:90% lamb for kibeh. 00:03:00.410 --> 00:03:02.870 align:middle line:90% We beg no guarantee of country. 00:03:02.870 --> 00:03:07.250 align:middle line:84% Anything but war until the third bottle of wine 00:03:07.250 --> 00:03:12.830 align:middle line:84% allows someone to ask if, in Lebanon, I am that man, 00:03:12.830 --> 00:03:17.120 align:middle line:84% if not that war my father wanted. 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:21.560 align:middle line:84% You want to know what bargains with snow will I make. 00:03:21.560 --> 00:03:25.160 align:middle line:84% Were my cousins not in that war, would I 00:03:25.160 --> 00:03:29.750 align:middle line:84% not have been with them at Sabra, at Shatilla? 00:03:29.750 --> 00:03:32.390 align:middle line:84% Naive to the war, I break all our glasses, 00:03:32.390 --> 00:03:36.400 align:middle line:90% this ghazal's form, smiling. 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:38.650 align:middle line:84% In the commons, we give up on speaking, 00:03:38.650 --> 00:03:41.620 align:middle line:84% fall quiet, cast looks to the mountains. 00:03:41.620 --> 00:03:44.920 align:middle line:84% From the pool, all's quiet, more to hold us than memory 00:03:44.920 --> 00:03:46.480 align:middle line:90% or will allow. 00:03:46.480 --> 00:03:50.050 align:middle line:84% Lying by in glassed-off heat, we listen past falls quiet. 00:03:50.050 --> 00:03:51.100 align:middle line:90% Whispers crackle. 00:03:51.100 --> 00:03:54.760 align:middle line:84% Jammed radios abandon as mute, Iraq's young succumb 00:03:54.760 --> 00:03:58.420 align:middle line:84% to deserts we let fall, quiet, as when 00:03:58.420 --> 00:04:01.810 align:middle line:84% we slump into the sauna, genitals swaddled, white cotton 00:04:01.810 --> 00:04:02.620 align:middle line:90% shrouds. 00:04:02.620 --> 00:04:06.730 align:middle line:84% All eyes avert, quietly appalled. 00:04:06.730 --> 00:04:11.290 align:middle line:84% Afraid to see my breasts, yours, to site black dick. 00:04:11.290 --> 00:04:13.630 align:middle line:84% In the North Country, we feel what 00:04:13.630 --> 00:04:17.879 align:middle line:84% they fear, the weight of whiteness, falling, quiet. 00:04:17.879 --> 00:04:19.000 align:middle line:90%