Call for submissions: Sufi Poetry

Just coming back briefly to get the word out about the Sufi Poetry Blog Carnival May 28th.

Tiel Aisha Ansari has posted more about it on her blog, Knocking from Inside. So if you have something you’d like to submit via a post url, run over and get it in before May 15th.

I can’t wait to read all everyone’s poems at the blog carnival. If you haven’t written anything, you still have time!

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‘Growing up in an alien environment’

Given that’s it’s National Poetry Month, this article seems very appropriate. I’m still digesting this but needless to say this reverberates with me. Check out the poem at the end of the article. I feel the need to send this guy an email. Excerpt:

Can’t sell a leaf to a tree
Nor the wind to the atmosphere
I know where I am meant to be
And I can’t be satisfied here

You can learn more about Lemn Sissay and read more of his work on his website.

Ethiopian poet, playwright and author Lemn Sissay, 39, was raised by a white family in the north of England. Here he tells how his life often felt like an experiment.

When somebody takes a child from their native culture, that is in itself an act of aggression.

People will often say, love is all you need.

But that is not true. Love without understanding is a dangerous thing.

My mother came to England in 1967, which was a really high point in Ethiopian culture – Ethiopia was a prosperous place. She came during what was a comfortable time for Ethiopians.

But as she found out, it was not a comfortable time for race relations in the UK.

My mother, finding herself in difficulties, sought to have me fostered for a short time.

However, the care worker, who named me Norman after himself, told my foster family that it was a proper adoption.

I was with them for 11 years.

My mother and father

Although they were white I believed they were my father and mother.

I had seen black people in the street or maybe even said hello but until I was 17 years old I never actually knew another black person.

continued

Shoutout to adk for getting this out!

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First Mother

“puddles and paving stones” pic by sume

Her brow, glossed and beaded with labor,
wrinkles no more with the weight
of silence.

Ease of breath,
does not come despite
the quieting of her womb.

Nothing can be heard but the panting of time
as she reaches through generations
to reclaim her children.

Written after the Indian Ocean tsunami

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Protected: With love, from a recovering TRA

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Thank you. I’m sorry.

Thank you for the long hours
you worked as a school secretary
to fill my belly with spicy red beans,
corn bread and sauced barbecue steaks.
Thank you for teaching me to grow
tomatoes, squash and okra
in the family garden.

I’m sorry that all you provided
couldn’t nourish the part of me
that still craves giant bowls of phở,
self-constructed rolls of gỏi cuốn
and the sweet taste of chè.
I’m sorry that the hours
you spent sweating
over a stove left me hungry
right after I’d left the table.

Thank you for the nights
you cradled me in arms
that were themselves empty
of another’s companionship.

I’m sorry that after you’d spent
hours rocking me to sleep,
I still longed for
and dreamt of Má.

Thank you for everything
that I never thanked you for
when I was a child.

I’m sorry for no longer
feeling grateful as I did
when I was a child.

Not particularly meant to be good. Just needed to get it out of my system if you know what I mean.

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