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Overview
Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets
2018 Arab American Book Award Winner, Poetry
"A taut debut collection of heartfelt poems."
—Publishers Weekly
In her dedication Safia Elhillo writes, “The January Children are the generation born in Sudan under British occupation, where children were assigned birth years by height, all given the birth date January 1.” What follows is a deeply personal collection of poems that describe the experience of navigating the postcolonial world as a stranger in one’s own land.
The January Children depicts displacement and longing while also questioning accepted truths about geography, history, nationhood, and home. The poems mythologize family histories until they break open, using them to explore aspects of Sudan’s history of colonial occupation, dictatorship, and diaspora. Several of the poems speak to the late Egyptian singer Abdelhalim Hafez, who addressed many of his songs to the asmarani—an Arabic term of endearment for a brown-skinned or dark-skinned person. Elhillo explores Arabness and Africanness and the tensions generated by a hyphenated identity in those two worlds.
No longer content to accept manmade borders, Elhillo navigates a new and reimagined world. Maintaining a sense of wonder in multiple landscapes and mindscapes of perpetually shifting values, she leads the reader through a postcolonial narrative that is equally terrifying and tender, melancholy and defiant.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781496200075 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nebraska |
| Publication date: | 03/01/2017 |
| Series: | African Poetry Book |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 72 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The January Children
By Safia Elhillo
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2017 Board of Regents of the University of NebraskaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4962-0007-5
CHAPTER 1
asmarani makes prayer
verily everything that is lost will be
given a name & will not come back
but will live forever
& verily a border-shaped wound will
be licked clean by songs naming
the browngirl in particular verily she
will not heal but verily the ghosts will
not leave her alone verily when asked how
she got her name if telling the truth she
will say [a woman died & everything
wants a home]
vocabulary
fact:
the arabic word [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] /hawa/ means wind
the arabic word [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] /hawa/ means love
test: [multiple choice]
abdelhalim said you left me holding wind in my hands
or
abdelhalim said you left me holding love in my hands
abdelhalim was left empty
or
abdelhalim was left
full
fairouz said o wind take me to my country
or
fairouz said o love take me to my country
fairouz is looking for vehicle
or
fairouz is looking for fuel
oum kalthoum said where the wind stops her ships we stop ours
or
oum kalthoum said where love stops her ships we stop ours
oum kalthoum is stuck
or
oum kalthoum is home
Sudan Today. Nairobi: University
of Africa, 1971. Print.
Note on Arabic
It is difficult.
The Publishers do not pretend
to have solved the problem.
1: INTRODUCING THE SUDAN
Above all, the story of Sudan is the record of a fight against nature.
to make use of water
dilute
i forget the arabic word for economy
i forget the english word for [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] forget
the arabic word for incense & english
word for [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] arabic word for sandwich
english for [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
/stupid girl atlantic got your tongue/
blur
back home we are plagued by a politeness
so dense even the doctors cannot call things
what they are my grandfather's lef eye
swirled thick with smoke
what my new mouth can call glaucoma
while the arabic still translates to
the white water
swim/dissolve
i want to go home
drown
half don't even make it out or across you
get to be ungrateful you get to be
homesick from safe inside your blue
american passport do you even
understand what was lost to bring you
here
did our mothers invent loneliness or did it make them our mothers were we fathered by silence or just looking to explain away this quiet is it wasteful to pray for our brothers in a language they never learned whose daughters are we if we grow old before our mothers or for their sakes they called our grandfathers the january children lined up by the colonizer & assigned birth years by height there is no answer we come from men who do not know when they were born & women shown to them in photographs whose children left the country & tried for romance & had daughters full of all the wrong language
while being escorted from the abdelhalim hafez concert
halim can i call you halim i didn't mean to make you tragic again
i've done it before i did it to myself & i didn't
mean to make it about me
it's only that i'm west of everything i understand
the songs help i speak their arabic i could be as dark
as the girl they're meant for i know the words they help
when i go home east of everything i've learned
don't be upset with me i saw your hands float up
saw them separate from the rest of your body & dance
i looked to them for direction i thought violins meant this way
you cue the flute i hear go home
i didn't mean to drown you out it's only that i'm not the best listener
i get my languages mixed up i look for answers in what is only music
i heard the lyric about a lost girl i thought you meant me
application for the position of
abdelhalim hafez's girl
i go quiet for days i turn the color of mirrors
i turn the color of smoke men tell me sometimes
that blue becomes me when i answer my voice
is hoarse from disuse i am afraid of my body & the ways
that it fails me i faint a woman on the subway platform
catches me floating into the tracks i become the color
blue i don't like to be touched i wonder why
more people have not been kidnapped by taxi drivers
white men ask me to say their names in arabic
ask where i'm [really from] i am six months
returned from sudan henna fading to look like burns
dusted up my arms i bleed & can't stop bleeding
i speak & my mouth is my biggest wound
every language is a borrowed joke i catch myself
complimenting strangers on their English i am six months
returned from incense smoke to soften the taste of river water
incense burned to avert the evil eye i see a possessed
woman scream when a prayer is read her eyes the color
of smoke & mine is a story older than water
abdelhalim hafez asks for references
there's a saying about women who cannot
remember their homes how they love to
mourn what does not belong to them
a language a man a silk dress
that glides quietly along the thighs
umeima hissed a rumor in our arabic class
that i wore such tight jeans because
my father had gone missing basma
leaning up from the row behind me
whispered if both parents had let umeima
leave the house with that ugly t-shirt on then
i was better off with just the one & now
i think if i had to choose then better
a man gone missing than drawn on a map
talking with an accent about home
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
home is
a name
maryland
is my
sudan
origin stories
1
i was made out of clay out of time the quran says we began
as a single clot of blood & i keep digging the wound it's warm inside
some things you lose to mark the time yes men of course but also
some hair handful of teeth is what i am told but all i lost
is a language but i keep quiet & no one can tell
2
my grandmother tells me to shred dill
by hand she means to teach me patience she calls it length of mind
3
i hear prayer called by a voice thick with something hurting
like a croak but i do not mean that it is ugly
it is dawn in khartoum & i am two days arrived everyone kisses
my cheeks & asks if i am returned or visiting & i think
they mean to be kind i sleep through gatherings & feel
there is too much blood in my body & that my name is my
name is my name is my name is
4
in khartoum's bright yellow morning my grandfather brings me
the season's first mangoes & tells me it is time to come home
they are firm & green but on the inside all sunlight i use my hands
& spill the juice all down my front i fill my mouth & i do not answer
a brief history of silence
at the musician's club in omdourman
a singer is stabbed to death for playing
secular music the month before a violinist
on his way home is beaten by police his instrument
smashed to matchwood all the bars in khartoum
are closed down all the alcohol in khartoum poured
into the nile a new law forbids women from dancing
in the presence of men another bans song lyrics
that mention women's bodies
the last time marvin gaye was heard in the sudan
at a party in omdourman lights strung among the date palms
my not-yet mother honey legs in a skirt opens her mouth
& the night air is the gap in her teeth
she sings in a lilting english to a slow song
while bodies around her pair off & press close
before he is my father my father smokes
a cigarette & shows all his teeth when he laughs
wants to ask the darkgold girl how her english got so good
what the words mean & could he sing
something sometime into the gap in her teeth
but first police arrive
rip lanterns from trees & fire a shot
through the final notes of the song & tonight
my parents do not meet
first interview for the position
of abdelhalim hafez's girl
i do not always survive
across boundaries i pull
sweet blue smoke from a coiled
hookah pipe i sometimes
lie bleeding painted gold
& you need not find me beautiful
mixed with water my border dulls
here i am little dagger ready
to make a home of your shirt pocket
answer me answer me
the lovers
khartoum in the eighties
my mother with ribbons in her hair
dress fanning about her nutmeg calves
my father
who i hear
was so lively & handsome
that only bad magic could have emptied
& filled him with smoke
the borrowed record player
the generation that would leave
to make nostalgia of these nights
to hyphenate their children
& grow gnarled by
every winter
but tonight motown crackling
into the hot twilight
mosquitoes drifing
near the lanterns
my parents dance
without touching
talking with an accent about home
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
smell winter scorching the untouched nile
wash
the
sudan
of
red
geography
i grew
&
my rift grew
&
another
sudan
was
missing
first adornment
it's ramadan i'm nine years old drinking
juice of crushed & strained hibiscus it
darkens my lips a bitten red & i
think i look like my biglegged aunts their
heavy hair burnt straight & draped with
bright & beaded scarves
their men lost or upstairs sleeping or gone
to america to look for work gone to
england to saudi arabia to the emirates to
look for work
i watch them pick through grains of rice for
stones & stew meat in hissing pots i watch
them cake the soles of their feet with henna
dye the stonecolored roots of their hair with
henna paint fat flowers on their palms &
ankles with henna & lie on daybeds with arms
& legs aloft waiting for it all to dry i grow
older & watch my own hips swell i paint
dark shapes along my arms around my
ankles & wait for the stain to set
callback interview for the position
of abdelhalim hafez's girl
when did you first hear abdelhalim
after my mother's first attempt at leaving my father we'd left egypt for
a pink house in
geneva i remember the tap water ran clear & i no longer had to
shower with my mouth
shut i drank exclusively from the downstairs bathroom sink the
water there was coldest
when did you first hear abdelhalim
in my grandmother's kitchen she knew all the words the story
goes that
she was the fairest of her sisters & knew all the egyptian films by
heart could have fit
right in from what i've seen in pictures but anyway her sister fatima
would say
why because your face is white that's just paint on a mud wall she'd
learned the
accent ?the affected lilt & you know the attitude was sure the
sudanese are
honest people but what about glamour
so what you're saying is you thought the song was for you
i guess you can say i have a type haunted men/dead men/men
marked to die
i don't follow
you know black i mean black
then you do think you're the girl fom the song
i guess i see the parallel i am brown like her i am always halfway
gone like her i'm not as cruel but i have tried it's just like the lyric says
i can't sing but it goes [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
reassure me how is the
browngirl what has distance done to her
you know he didn't mean that brown you know he didn't mean black
the first time i heard abdelhalim was when i moved to new york city
& finally got rid of
my accent
speaking of which what are you exactly are you arab or not are you black
or not
the first time i heard abdelhalim was when my mother moved back to
egypt & cairo was
burning & i forgot to call rather than saying you know i'm not
sure i still
speak arabic
would you care to address the treatment of nubians in egypt & in the
arab world at large
look black as i am i still feel like the girl from the song i mean i
remember walking
through cairo khan al khalili you know the big bazaar anyway i
remember the
men were calling from their shops hey nile girl hey aswan
dam & i never
got the context so i'm not sure if they were taunting but i
mean they looked at
me & thought of water does that answer the question
bride price
married off at seventeen to a man who saw her in a photograph
my grandmother hair heavier than night
creamcolored girl spilled from her mother's lap
thinks i am taking too long
we all outlive our beauty it is currency we trade with men for their names
for a house for someone to belong to
& become the only kind
of woman that we know
stung by the kitchen's
heat & our own
tempers fingers
sanded down by prayer
beads forever frying
meat & scrubbing
yellowed linen dyeing
withered hair in the
bathroom at night
raising thick-knuckled
daughters & well-loved
sons dying without
learning to smile with
our teeth
old wives' tales
spraying perfume on your hair will turn it gray a black cardamom seed will cure any ache white toothpaste will cool a burn a man will make your hips big braiding your hair before bed keeps it from falling out in the night caramel removes body hair wearing shorts is an invitation [men like biglegged girls] spraying perfume on an open wound will clean it wearing your hair loose invites the evil eye & it will fall out in the night a pierced nose means you are ready to marry a small chest means you are not eating enough red meat walking too much will shrink you [men like biglegged girls] castor oil will make your hair grow back a prayer bound up in leather will protect you from the evil eye a prayer dissolved in water casts a spell
date night with abdelhalim hafez
the story goes my father would never unwrap a piece of gum without saving half for my mother the story goes my mother saved all the halves in a jar that's not the point i'm not looking for anything serious just someone to watch my plants when i'm gone [you can sing now if you want to] they're worried no one will marry me i have an accent in every language i want to be left alone but that's not how you make grandchildren i can't go home with you home is a place in time [that's not how you get me to dance] i'm not from here or from anywhere i mean to say i don't know that song
first quarantine with abdelhalim hafez
& maybe it is too easy to blame
mortality on our capacity for love
the slow death that is putting
your breath in another's body
trusting your name in another mouth
but maybe it is smaller say water
sweat yes tears yes but also
the nile as a vein between our two home
countries washing the red dust
from my feet yes cooling the sear
of a blood-orange sun yes but also killing you
the way only foul water can kill
& i do know how it is
to be young & always
sick at the mercy of
something meant
to immortalize us
the slow finish is in my heart
its syrup trickle
& i don't mean love
i mean my wet crooked
actual heart
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The January Children by Safia Elhillo. Copyright © 2017 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Kwame Dawes, ix,asmarani makes prayer, 1,
vocabulary, 2,
Sudan Today. Nairobi: University of Africa, 1971. Print., 3,
to make use of water, 4,
[did our mothers invent loneliness or ...], 5,
while being escorted from the abdelhalim hafez concert, 6,
application for the position of abdelhalim hafez's girl, 7,
abdelhalim hafez asks for references, 8,
talking with an accent about home, 9,
origin stories, 10,
a brief history of silence, 11,
the last time marvin gaye was heard in the sudan, 12,
first interview for the position of abdelhalim hafez's girl, 13,
the lovers, 14,
talking with an accent about home, 15,
first adornment, 16,
callback interview for the position of abdelhalimhafez's girl, 17,
bride price, 19,
old wives' tales, 20,
date night with abdelhalim hafez, 21,
first quarantine with abdelhalim hafez, 22,
self-portrait with dirty hair, 23,
watching arab idol with abdelhalim hafez, 24,
self-portrait with the question of race, 25,
second date, 26,
abdelhalim hafez wants to see other people, 27,
red moon night, 28,
self-portrait with yellow dress, 29,
others, 30,
alternate ending, 31,
[& what is a country but the drawing. ...], 32,
late-night phone call with abdelhalim hafez, 33,
republic of the sudan /ministry of interior / passport & immigration general directorate / alien from Sudanese origin passcard, 34,
talking with an accent about home, 35,
talking with an accent about home (second take), 36,
second quarantine with abdelhalim hafez, 37,
portrait with asylum, 39,
talking to boys about abdelhalim hafez at parties, 40,
biopic containing lies about abdelhalim hafez, 41,
asmarani does psychogeography, 42,
why abdelhalim, 43,
self-portrait with lake nasser, 44,
abdelhalim hafez asks who the sudanese are, 45,
the part i keep forgetting, 46,
talking with an accent about home (reprise), 47,
third quarantine with abdelhalim hafez, 48,
final interview for the position of abdelhalim hafez's girl, 49,
self-portrait as abdelhalim hafez's girl, 51,
portrait with abdelhalim hafez with the question of race, 52,
lovers' quarrel with abdelhalim hafez, 53,
portrait of abdelhalim hafez as orpheus, 55,
glossary, 56,
everything i know about abdelhalim hafez, 57,
Acknowledgments, 59,
Notes, 61,