Democracy Now! | Palestinian-American Poet Suheir Hammad: “Of Refuge and Language”

Democracy Now! | Palestinian-American Poet Suheir Hammad: “Of Refuge and Language”: "SUHEIR HAMMAD: I wrote this poem after Hurricane Katrina and the victims of the rescue effort. The rescue effort victims of Hurricane Katrina were viewed on television for all of us, and they were called 'refugees.' This is a poem for all of the refugees in the world.

'Of Refuge and Language'

I do not wish
To place words in living mouths
Or bury the dead dishonorably

I am not deaf to cries escaping shelters
That citizens are not refugees
Refugees are not Americans

I will not use language
One way or another
To accommodate my comfort

I will not look away

All I know is this

No peoples ever choose to claim status of dispossessed
No peoples want pity above compassion
No enslaved peoples ever called themselves slaves

What do we pledge allegiance to?
A government that leaves its old
To die of thirst surrounded by water
Is a foreign government

People who are streaming
Illiterate into paperwork
Have long ago been abandoned"

Click link to read entire poem