The driver of the yellow mini van(service as we call it, which refers to yellow mini vans that are used as means of public transpotation in the west bank. There’s no schedule: once the service is full, it takes off) pointed towards a hole in the apartheid wall and told us that we should take this shortcut to make it to the checkpoint faster. He grinned gingerly and departed away from Qalandia’s usual traffic jams. We slipped through the shaft separating two slabs of concrete, as we’ve been indicated (check photo below), then walked straight to the checkpoint. Lit by flourescent lights, the endless metal corridors were grim and morbid. I felt anger, not only because of such humiliation, but also because the audacity of this state to hang a sign at the entrance of this illegal, inhumane military checkpoint saying: “this checkpoint was made for you, keep it clean” something along these lines.

Just couple of hours ago and not that far from this checkpoint, I was sitting with amazing young writers at Khalil-Al-Sakakini cultural center reading Neruda’s Ode to his Socks. It was part of a Creative Writing Workshop that I held, as part of the project Poetry is Closer than the Sea, where participants arrive with their own text written in English and we read it together and give feedback. The juxtaposition of where i was and where I am made me question the authenticity and the ability of poetry to make a change. Just now, and for three hours, we were sitting in the lovely stone balcony of this beautiful cultural center, where Mahmoud Darwish used to smoke his cigarettes and a place called after one of the brightest, most visionary Palestinian thinker Khalil Al Sakakini. We sat there, safe and joyful and read poems and short stories. And now here I am, crossing a checkpoint and feeling the anger boil inside my guts. Can poetry make a difference in the context of brutal colonial violence, manifested, among many things, in this ugly structure of apartheid wall and checkpoint?

To answer this question honestly, I want to tell you what we’ve done in this workshop and then reflect on it. We started by a short round of introduction, telling our name, talking a bit about our relationship with writin, and at the end sharing a book or two that we are reading at the moment. After that, we had one writing exercise as a warm up then we plunged into reading texts submitted by the participants then giving our opinion about it as well as recommendations to try. We had a short break, where we got the staff to open the office of Mahmoud Darwish. This, for me, was a special moment. To roam through Darwish’s writing office and to check his photos and books, was to feel his presence. And quoting Darwish himself the trace of the butterfly cannot be seen fades/the effect of the butterfly never fades.

After the break, we reconvened again around the white table, and indulged on sweet figs picked from the front yard of the center and brought us by the director of the center. We continued editing, did more writing exercises and ended the workshop by taking the following photo.

For me, this workshop gave me hope. And hope is an invaluable commodity, especially when you are part of a colonized people. Hope is the fuel to keep us going forward and not succumb to the relentless blows of occupation.

This workshop made me feel rewarded. One participant was in a mental block for the past few months, and as he told me at the end of this workshop: when is the next one? I feel so motivated to write and I feel that I know what I want to write now… Another participant sent me this following message:

In addition, I felt that the space that we’ve created in that balcony on the 3rd of September provided us with the clearance to articulate our experiences in this very harsh reality that our blad lives at the moment. Colonialism was absent in its physical manifestations, but was present in its mental and emotional effect. This space provided us with the ability to take a step back and write down our feelings: our frustration, our anger, our fear, our hope, our joy. A very close friend of mine told me:

I still think about the practicality of poetry, and its place as well as effect in society. I can say that the brief 3 hour workshop gave me a glimpse of what our society b

Join us this Saturday in our second writing workshop for this season! It will take place in my favorite place on earth- Nazareth’s old city market. We are hosted by Blebel, a youth-run club in the heart of the market. Here are the details in the poster:

The Theme of this workshop is SEASONAL.

It’s Autumn here in Palestine and it’s a transition state of many kinds. Though I usually focus on spatial themes, I decided to dedicate this workshop to a temporal element of SEASONS. I’m super excited, especially as I prepare a gift for the participants ❤

The form to register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PEzPWvLTthX3jrTYDVb2-oK4LFXZJ9nTl7MUgkSr0Jg/edit#responses

As we sat in the backyard of Fattoush Gallery in downtown Haifa, a yellow butterfly blessed us with its graceful presence. I am not a superstitiuos person but yellow butterflies symbolize love and magic for me (if you’ve read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquéz you will understand why). Indeed, our Writing Space was magical and filled with love for something we all care about: writing. Writing is this action when our words express our emotions; when they unravel unconscious processes and impressions; and when we explore an uncharted, rich place of imagination and creation.

We met this Saturday morning (3rd of Sep) in Haifa’s eclectic Fattoush Gallery and Bar. We got to know each other (there were 11 of us) by doing a round of names and naming a book that we like or we’re currently reading. After ordering our coffee, we started with the first writing exercise “stream of consciousness” that consists of writing without stopping nor thinking for 7 minutes. The first words of this prompt was “be prepared….”. My mind was so hard to restrain and i wrote gingerly without taking my pen off the paper. After the 7 minutes were over, I asked the participants how were they doing and I got the following replies: refreshing, encouraging, I feel warmed up. And this is exactly what I was aiming for.

The second exercise was really fun: each person was handed a piece of paper and was asked to write 5 things: a place, a color, a machine/tool, a feeling, a flavor. After writing our words, we folded the paper and were asked to pass it to the person on our left. After that, each one was asked to write a piece (poetry or prose) using the words written on that piece of paper. We had 10 minutes to do this challenging prompt, but it was really worth it! The results were amazing and people shared some great pieces (I will be sharing some of what people wrote later).

The third and last prompt was inspired from my thesis paper and my whole obsession with the question of space and poetry- which is exactly the essence of this poetry project (Poetry is Closer than the Sea). I read them a quote by Henri Lefebvre saying:

“the live, practical experience does not let itself be exhausted through theoretical analysis. There always a surplus, a remainder of inexpressable and unanalysable but most valuable residue that can be expressed only through artistic means” (Sturart 49)

Later, they were asked to reflect on the space of Haifa by recalling a specific place and a specific action or event taking place there. Following this, they were asked to imagine/ reflect/ analyse/ pereive the place differently: how could it have been? how was it? how’s this place lived? what’s more than material conditions of the place? This was a bit of a hard prompt because it wasn’t super clear as it allowed more interpretation and freedom (which can be both a good thing and a bad thing).

Wrapping up, we ended with taking a beautiful picture (although not all participants appear in the photo because some people left before taking this photo). After that, we lingered in the cafe and shared some writings and poems.

As soon as I got home, I sent them an email with the evaluation form along with another writing prompt. The writing prompt is to read this ghazal and to try to imitate it. I’m sharing some of the replies from the evaluation form:

Reading these responses just makes me so happy and makes these initiatives more exciting and rewarding. I’m hoping to have future events and to develop the concept of The Writing Place.