pickNot surprisingly, war is everywhere in Palestinian poetry. Even when it‘s not the topic, its presence is palpable. El-Kurd‘s poetry is no different in that regard, but the collection is bound by his grandmother, Rifqa, known to many as Palestine‘s Jasmine, who lived to be 103.
It‘s a tribute to a woman whom El-Kurd has rendered so lovingly, I feel like I know her well enough to say she reminds me of my 95 year-old-grandmother.
Power of poetry.
so-soI picked this up on vacation without knowing a thing about it. I liked the author‘s writing style. I wanted to like it. But the story just didn‘t connect for me at all. I‘d give it a pan but I really did enjoy the writing, and I didn‘t feel like I was forcing myself to finish it. But I wouldn‘t recommend it. This copy is going to a neighborhood Free Library.
pickMaybe the first sign that the unnamed narrator shouldn‘t be teaching young men is that she wheels her supplies in a CVS cart—a sign that she‘s ready to take. If she teaches the boys anything, it‘s the value of pretense: dressing well, sneaking around, crafting stories. You can spend all day trying to clean the dirt off you, or you could learn a lot more about yourself by throwing it around.
#ReadTheWorld2025
In May and June I added 5 books to @GatheringBooks challenge. I covered the following countries: #Palestine #Suriname #Brazil #Nigeria #Israel
pickListened to this #audiobook while playing PowerWash Simulator (#audiogaming ?) which feels like some of my other favorite activities - #audiopuzzling & #audiostitching.
Ta-Nehisi Coates reads wonderfully, and his writing works well in audio format. From Senegal to South Carolina to Palestine, he writes powerfully about race, myths, and the stories we tell ourselves. I appreciate how willing he was to be self-critical and show how he's changed.
pickReading Ta-Nehisi Coates‘s The Message was both a humbling and galvanizing experience. Coates‘s journey—spanning Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine—compels readers to confront the stories we inherit and the myths we perpetuate, particularly those that uphold white supremacy and obscure the realities of marginalized people. I‘ll be buying a physical copy and referencing it for years to come on how to craft stories—fiction and nonfiction alike.
pickHammad, in a speech she delivered at Columbia, uses the concept of narrative shift in literature and applies it to our current place in history. 4⭐️
Getting my nonfiction itch scratched by the incomparable Ta-Nehisi Coates.
The last paradox is that the tale of Palestine from the beginning until today is a simple story of colonialism and dispossession, yet the world treats it as a multifaceted and complex story—hard to understand and even harder to solve. Any interference from the outside world is immediately castigated as naïve at best or anti-Semitic at worst.
