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“I Write an Attempt”: On Mohammed El-Kurd’s “Rifqa” | Los Angeles Review of Books

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IN MOHAMMED EL-KURD’S remarkable debut, Rifqa, the Jerusalem-based poet writes of longing: for a childhood uninterrupted, for home, for laughter. These longings are, of course, wrapped up in that ever-present burn for liberation that settles in the stomachs of Palestinians, both in the region and across the globe. Rifqa beautifully explores the ways colonialism alters our navigation of time and space — a few miles of travel can take a lifetime, an event that occurred 73 years ago is happening for the first time tomorrow, and the city from which you fled can be recreated where you land. In El-Kurd’s work, there are reverberations of Palestinian visionaries that came before him. Suheir Hammad’s cadence, in particular, is resonant. It appears both textually in subtitles marked “after Suheir Hammad,” and in the body of poems, but her influence is present even when she goes unmentioned. In her poem “post Zionism” as it appears in ZaatarDiva, she writes: “This is nothing new / I have always

“I Write an Attempt”: On Mohammed El-Kurd’s “Rifqa” Summer Farah considers “Rifqa” by Mohammed El-Kurd. By Summer Farah December 4, 2021 Poetry Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd . Haymarket Books , 2021. 100 pages. Buy on Bookshop.org Did you know LARB is a reader-supported nonprofit? LARB publishes daily without a paywall as part of our mission to make rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts freely accessible to the public. Help us continue this work with your tax-deductible donation today! Donate IN MOHAMMED EL-KURD’S remarkable debut, Rifqa , th

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