Nurse aides — certified nursing assistants — are some of my greatest heroes. They are the “men and women obscure in their labor,” as President Obama put it, who are the “the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things.” They are a career that gets over-looked in the world of the arts … […]
Suzan Abrams posted two poems from Grace like a Shadow by Islam Samhan, the Jordanian poet imprisoned in October 2008 for writing love poetry that incorporated verses from the Koran. According to her site these aren’t the poems that got Samhan in trouble. Since I do not know Persian or Arabic I cannot […]
a photo of Islam Samhan by Salah Malkawi (2008)
Since October, 2008, Islam Samhan remains in jail, accused of writing love poetry using quotes from the Koran. This BBC article:
Writers in Jordan are calling for the immediate release of a poet charged with insulting Islam in love poetry.
Islam Samhan’s recent collection, Grace Like A Shadow, […]
“the dead shall return” ZJC (2009)
Often I wonder what the dead do when they are not here; and by dead I mean friends who are no longer part of my life. A semester ends, a job ends, a relationship ends and friends disappear, most of which I never see again. I recall the […]