hypo portrait
Noor ('Ditee) Jaber
in love with the color green for its perceived neutrality
dounia is an earthly girl with black magic fingers
the earth pulls her to trace the patterns on its skin
touch every third flower in the yard touch only the odd
fence posts
touch the spiral
path in a conquered
tree’s soft cross-section after rain, touch; dounia
doesn’t know how to dance with what pulls her small spirit
in every direction. an undisturbed case of inertia til her feet are lifted
from the ground. stop playing around we late. say bye to your friend douniawe
leaving.
in her bed, she’s finally at rest. the dark unburdens
her of the daytime’s
pains and contradictions.
here, there’s nothing
to pull her from anything. nothing touches her
wrists or her chunky chest. nothing sees
the vague curve of her
body nothing holds her
in the Black basket of her disappearance.
her screaming
-self a nonexistence in this
frame of reference.
INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
(1) What diasporas do you write into, and what diasporas do you write to create?
I write in the tradition of Black and Arab diasporic writers. I also see Black queerness and transness as a diaspora—one that I am actively shaping as a US-born and -raised qt Black person living abroad because of the genocidal conditions of this political moment for trans people in the US. I write to create space for madness and alternate experiences of the body, including disability/chronic pain, within these diasporic lineages.
(2) Where does this piece land within the greater history, body, and/or evolution of your work?
I wrote this piece several years ago. It’s an origin story of (my) dissociation, and part of a collection I’m currently seeking to publish, our love is an imagination. Self/transformation is grief-laden, and it can be dangerous, too. With invertebrates, molting is an incredibly vulnerable process, and not everyone survives. our love is an imagination is me writing the grief of this reality into something that speaks/sings/wails/screams.
(3) How do "xenolithic edges” show up in your piece?
This piece is full of grief for my child-self and all that she went through, and xenoliths remind me of how grief works. How it never goes away. It’s something hard we have to grow and form ourselves around, and this does create new edges, new boundaries. These are the places where we meet our grief. And it is so important to do so; that’s a big part of why I write.
NOOR ('DITEE) IS THE BLACK, QUEER, AND MAD MAIN CHARACTERS OF A ROM COM. A TEACHING POET, SHE WRITES THROUGH AN INTERSECTIONAL LENS THAT EXPERIMENTS WITH LANGUAGE AND SOUND AS CONDUITS OF EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION. A FORMALIST, SHE SEES POETIC LANGUAGE AS A MEDIUM MORE FLUID THAN WATERCOLOR. HER THEMED, VIRTUAL WORKSHOPS CREATE HORIZONTAL SPACES TO GRAPPLE WITH POETIC INQUIRY IN A RIGOROUS, ANTI-ELITIST WRITING COMMUNITY.
AN ABOLITIONIST, NOOR WRITES TO IMAGINE THE FUTURE SHE WANTS FOR HER PEOPLE INTO EXISTENCE. SHE LOVES DOUBLE MEANINGS, CREATIVE GRAMMAR, AND WORDS WITH “EXQUISITE MOUTHFEEL.” NOOR IS THE AUTHOR OF PRAISE TO LESSER GODS OF LOVE, PUBLISHED BY GLASS POETRY IN 2019. CATCH UP WITH HER WORK IN THE MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW, PLEIADES, MOUTHFUL OF SALT, DIAGRAM, AND OTHER PRINT AND DIGITAL PUBLICATIONS. TO LEARN MORE, VISIT NOOR'S INSTAGRAM @NOHEROES_INLOVEPOEMS.