My Poem of the Week: 'yasmeen' by Safia Elhillo

[narya_flame]

yasmeen

i was born     at the rupture the root where     i split from my parallel self  i split from     the girl i also could have been     & her name / easy / i know the story     all her life / my mother wanted     a girl named for a flower     whose oil scents all     our mothers /     petals wrung     for their perfume

i was planted     land became ocean became land anew     its shape refusing root in my fallow mouth     cleaving my life neatly     & my name / taken from a dead woman     to remember / to fill an aperture with     cut jasmine in a bowl     our longing     our mothers’     wilting     garlands hanging from our necks

The formatting is far from perfect (it shouldn't really be in a table...) but this is the best I could do on DW.  Here is the poet performing the piece.

 

 

Comments

[mithrial]

So much more powerful when read by its author, of course.

An interesting idea that it should have the phrases in a table. So the phrases become disjointed and you can read them in alternative order I'm guessing?

I know so little about poetry. I think that probably, like art, it's what you make of it all yourself. Everyone finds their own meaning.

On the second reading, I thought of the earth, Gaia, only because some of the ideas lean my mind there.

[narya_flame]

The idea, I think, is it's essentially 3 poems in 1 - each column is a poem by itself, but then you can read "across" the columns to assemble the third poem.

I know so little about poetry. I think that probably, like art, it's what you make of it all yourself. Everyone finds their own meaning.

Very true! And I can definitely see the Gaia imagery.

[hhimring]

Fascinating and thought-provoking!

[narya_flame]

I liked it more and more the more I read it. Then I accidentally closed the tab with it in and couldn't remember who the author was...I was so cross! But delighted to find it again.