Marzieh Ghiasi

“Don’t want to be your exotic…” She declared after the round of applause at her entrance. The music gave way to silence, a few whistles, then in darkness the whole room hushed. “… like some colorful dark fragile bird imprisoned.” she said resolutely. Adorning a red glittery shawl, she let every page fall to floor as she showed us her mother, strength, her Brooklyn, the New Orleans she had seen, the Palestinian that she was, the poet, the daughter, refugee, landless, broken levees, falling bombs, fragility, prisons, youth, loss, men, women, beauty, skin… the nuances of being.

I had the privilege of seeing Suheir Hammad here in Montreal last night. Although I was excited, in retrospective I am not sure what I expected walking up Boulevard Saint-Laurent that afternoon. I had seen her performances on Def Poetry, but seeing people behind the screen, you can never be certain of what is real. When she took the stage, it was almost hard not to feel mesmerized as words —beautiful words, brutal words, few words— fell so effortlessly into their natural habitat, budding from each one a thousand thoughts, and from each of those a thousand emotions.

Brilliant! What a lady. She’s the real deal.