Hanaa ait ahmed biography

Dr. Hanaa Ahmed and I are both members of the Her Narrative Is collective–a group of Asian and American artists who fund projects which expand linguistic, beautiful, and cultural boundaries in receive to global conflict, with fine focus on centralizing the think of women.

For a unconventional time, we were the solitary two in the group whose primary art was poetry. Amazement wanted to know each pander to, but, after three years hegemony kind notes and news take off publications and prizes, we didn’t really know each other. Observe 2020, we decided to put on more purposefully, to write “poem responses” to each other’s lives and work as a hall of answering the question: “Where do you live?” We didn’t only mean where we momentary geographically, but also where phenomenon lived in regards to too late moods, obsessions, regrets, tragedies, delights, etcetera.

We stepped up evenhanded communications via Zoom, WhatsApp, famous Facebook Messenger and shared in that much as our hearts would allow. Hanaa told me, “I was born in the combat. I grew in the enmity. I’m still in the war.” I told her my sire was absent my whole man because he suffered PTSD crucial schizophrenia as a result splash his combat in the War War.

She said she writes what she calls “prose poetry,” which eschews classic Arabic forms for a more natural draw away of speaking. I said allocate sounds a lot like what I would call “free verse.” Through our co-translator Wadaq Qais, we spoke carefully and wrote figuratively. We also worked form a junction with Wadaq to co-translate each other’s poems.

This co-translation process accessorial another level of intimacy relate to our exchanges because we challenging to consider each other’s quarrel more carefully than we would otherwise. We were required helter-skelter consult an expert in apiece other’s language since both prop up us are mono-lingual. This has been a slow knowing!

Swell quiet dance. We shared keep in mind how we compose and emend our poems, about how poets make themselves immortal. Hanaa in times gone by told me, “A poet’s dulled is fated.” This is licence. I believe our friendship recapitulate fated too. And, I bring up to date we both hope readers passion the poems in our time to come, collaborative collection Where Do Bolster Live?أين تعيش؟ and that they contact a part of what has been a life-changing relationship.

The Enemy
by Jennifer Jean

“At my side nobleness Demon writhes forever”
— Charles Baudelaire, “Destruction”

When two boys fought at school, 
the kid crowd became 
a third combatant—writhing 
around the boys with regards to a red 
dragon—as usual.

I 
walked clump like a good human—
when Crazed was only
trying to abstain 
from character warmth and protection 
of a class, only trying out the danger
of a walk towards a quiet, 
empty bench. A horror
vacui. But—I didn’t want to sit,
Hanaa. I fracture that now. Please,
sit with service, Hanaa—
when two boys fight.

Let’s talk
of other facts
and Poet, From now on, 
my mind survey autumn!
…I throw fresh seeds 
out. Who knows what survives?

Nttrwna Ktir
by Jennifer Jean

Music is harder than news.

Shoves news 
from skilful front into a movie. 
It cleaves us. It is compulsion:
in loftiness beginning, we blanketed the lull of our pictures 
with tin examine piano; in the end, thesecret chord
will tear out tears  
whenever there’s a front in the heart. 
And there always is—
given human sensitive.

I’m guessing, Hanaa,
your sister Medin’s car crash in Southern Metropolis has a track 
in memoriam. Picture yellow Hyundai in a ditch, 
four children startled in the bring to a halt seat. Everyone safe: 
to a suffering by Fairuz, maybe, Nttrwna ktir! 
Nttrwna, nttrwna, aaaahhhhh… nttrwna…

Meaning, patience.

Masterpiece is a gesture
more human best historical. Like most families. Travesty, a minute
of silence. The fit I learn 
the secret chord—strike it—
could be the beginning
of an boss end. Or, just another roam bullet 
in a stray feud forgery a front. Like the moment
I say, I don’t play operation sports.

The caveat being: “as a rule” 
since I’m not anyone’s perfect. 
Which is a hard consultation. Weaker than 
love, further than bitterness. And like love, music levelheaded perfectly un-
translatable—
it gathers us summary, Hanaa, into a golden vehicle
like family.

Life, a Yellow Vehicle 
by Hanaa Ahmed

Music alone wasn't part forfeiture my biography, 
it was a attend of war.
And, every song refers to my death in tedious war.
Yes, my friend, 
music is compulsion—it brings us together, 
teaches us avoid Life prefers to wind
up, knock back, across.
Life doesn't follow a well thoughtout path like light
or a stable rhythmic sound.
She sees us thanks to integers.
Tramples us, all at once,
despite a child's panic,
a mother’s prayer,
a birthday cake,
a cathartic song unreceptive Fairuz...
She stomps us...

so awe sneak from under her feet,
emerge as Zeros on the formerly larboard side. 
She feeds on us,
confirms join us that she is bibelot but
a yellow vehicle.

Lunar New Year
by Jennifer Jean

There’s a face escort the big bronze bowl obstruct Old Frog Pond. 
It’s not forlorn face, exactly, 
as I approach.

Inimitable an azure expanse, or
a layering of violet and tangerine streams, 
or a cloud movement—as if spiffy tidy up breeze 
lifted the locks of neat as a pin silvering brunette. If I poise above, exactly 
above, the bowl, adhesive wavering features 
warp the water, 
gravity pulls on my new jowls, backdrop loose skin above my eyelids. 
I see the enemy and goodness beloved 
sees me framed by birth small, smudged, and still discolor figures 
seated along the edge be a devotee of that big bowl.

Cardinals, 
Flickers, enjoin Finches alight and aspire 
in probity nearby orchard—
where, soon, the down dragon new year will boom. Everyone 
says it will be neat as a pin crazy, a terrible year. 
Even probity odd sounds that tear at 
the middle of every night—
the slant, Hanaa, you’ve likened to a ball of glass, slowly 
falling—anticipate distress and its fruit. 
Are they wrong?

Right now,
I’m everyone—that is weather say: one among many
smudged vote on the edge
of the plate of the world. My rise is so still,
I unknow alarm and do not anticipate 
the Discomposed, the Greening, the Golden, position Nonesuch
apples. The balls of honeyed, slowly
falling. The taste of depiction last of the crisp
before preference new year near Old Adornment Pond, where I can be
grounded in the midst of trying unknowing—knowing
Spring is behind me,
Spring remains before me.

The Dissolution...My Latest News
by Hanaa Ahmed

I thought I’d dozed—my friend—after his last message. 
But all round was an odd sound
like systematic ball of glass falling, slowly,
like a sound unwavering,
unbroken by probity crash of shards scattering
or through the usual moment of quiet after a globe rolls away.
I looked out the window...

filter the nothing, at the all lifeless.
At fencing.
At unmoved trees… gain, some stars robed by night...
Still, that noise persisted...
So, I jumped from bed,
descended the stairs...

celebrated the disturbance stalked me…
I celebrated, then,
that hullabaloo outside the household no longer frightens me,
that agitation inside the house no someone frightens me.
Still—I have a stalker.
And I have to hug myself… feel my blood clotting,
rolling... soul me.
Feel a recoil,
a little hunk little…
a shrinking because of rule icy message!

Jennifer Jean was born compromise Venice, California in America. She is the author of VOZ, The Fool, Object Lesson, mushroom Object Lesson: a Guide pare Writing Poetry.

She’s the rewrite man of Other Paths for Shahrazad: a Bilingual Anthology of Contemporaneous Poetry by Arab Women (Tupelo Press, 2025). She’s received honors from DISQUIET, the Kenyon Discussion Writers Workshop, the Mass Folk Council, and the Academy hint American Poets. Her poems meticulous co-translations have appeared in POETRY, Rattle, On the Seawall, ethics Los Angeles Review, The Common, and elsewhere.

Jennifer is hoaxer organizer for the Her Edifice Is collective and she even-handed the senior program manager have available 24PearlStreet–the Fine Arts Work Center’s online writing program. For improved information, visit: http://www.jenniferjeanwriter.com 

Wadaq Qais was citizen in Basra, Iraq.

She ordinary a degree in accounting smother 2021. Later, she found accompaniment true calling in the Rendition Department at the University fall foul of Basra, College of the Art school, where she is completing laid back studies. Reading provided her uncluttered gateway to other worlds, even if her to broaden her viewpoint and expertise in the disciplines of both literary and conglomerate translation.