waves of feeling and moving: review of natalie hanna's lisan al'asfour
natalie hanna, lisan al’asfour.
ARP, 2022. $18 CAD.
Order a copy from ARP.
lisan al’asfour is a collection of poems by natalie hanna, a poet who poignantly weaves stories of intimate relationships through a feminist lens to form an interconnected tapestry of her Middle Eastern-Canadian identity. hanna’s use of rich language to capture the inner narrative of her lived experience and matrilineal inquiry as a child of a single mother forced to migrate to Canada from Egypt in the 1970s evokes a visceral sense in the reader. Through the use of sensorial storytelling, imagery and symbolism, we get a compelling insight into hanna’s experiences with working in the field of law, racism, medicalization, childlessness and ancestral lineages.
hanna’s use of wordplay and unconventional sentence structuring inspires active reading and a sense of self-connection to engage with the messages it carries for readers. “naharda” expresses the pain and grief-ridden experience of immigrants learning English. English as the language of choice in this collection is subverted when she writes “out reach I and / hands little sandy my with / face mother’s my kiss to / television the at wave to hands reach i and.” It may take readers a moment to realize they must read these sentences from the right side of the page to the left, just as Arabic is read. hanna’s conflicting and amalgamated identities are reflected in her writing style, creating a unique reading experience that informs consumers of the struggles of her fading mother tongue in the pursuit of adopting English. “bird’s tongue” is the title piece in which she asks a profound question that many in the diasporas may relate to, “ana mish ayza [i don’t want to] / akol lisan al’asfour [eat the bird’s tongue] / and now wonder / if i had done / would the language [of my mother’s homeland] / have remained.”
Similarly, “peremptory challenge (i).” plays with visual presentations of poetry. The poem appears as a square, requiring readers to turn the book 360 degrees to follow hanna’s internal questioning. hanna’s legal expertise advises the sanctioned game of immigration qualifiers and follows through this notion with a confusing and frustrating written form, much like the many convoluted facets of immigration. One can quite literally feel the effect of her stylistic choices in this piece.
lisan al’asfour’s audacious inquiry of justice as a concept that informs the status of peoples, especially of foreign nationalities, in colonial Canada is laced with hanna’s lived experiences. “peremptory challenge (vii).” is steeped in rage towards a violent system that is anything but just- “a justice of consequence / reclining on / the broken back of mercy” and “this is the way it works / stop calling it justice / there is no word, no act / can put breath / back in the body.” hanna’s clear convictions on justice and freedom are layered with anger-protected grief in “there are some in every crowd (– written during the ongoing occupation of ottawa, during the COVID pandemic, february 2022).” She calls out the so-called freedom that is marinated in the experiences and perceived supremacy of whiteness, “your freedom is white / your freedom’s a man / your freedom is non-disabled and young / and you disavow what your body never lives.”
Womanhood and motherhood are prominent overlapping themes in the stories encapsulated within lisan al’asfour. hanna’s idea of mother is extended beyond maternal relationships as a metaphor for one’s origins, of indigeneity such as mother tongue and motherland in the lines: “in your mind there is / a land you think is mother” and “she is where you’re from…” (61). The six parts of “mother looks at me” explores the mother-daughter dynamics of immigrant families that are full of loss and grief. “mother looks at me (iii).” speaks of a mother’s point of view, “this is the price we pay when we come here / we gain the country and lose our children'' and “mother looks at me / says as casual as you please / there is nothing arabic in you.” The fifth part of this piece culminates in the daughter’s self-loathing and doubtful point of view, “am even i forbidden? / softly i say, to soothe my mother’s rage / words in every alphabet choke in my throat.” In the final part, hanna responds to her mother with an expression of her responsibility as the new generation of her Middle Eastern Canadian lineage, “i, who must build a home in my heart / make up for everything lost / make up for all that’s denied you.”
hanna puts compelling words to the contradictory dynamics in her relationship to her identities in “error of index”. Confusing notions of belonging are depicted in the lines “the young hijabi girls narrow their eyes at me / you’re arab, i know, but what kind? / i recite my parents’ birthlands / full arab, they say, but a lawyer, which means / you were born here like us.” In contrast, she also describes the violence of assimilation as an arbitrary standard of whiteness and conformity that can never be satisfied when she writes “and the tailors all know / that this coat isn’t mine” in “wearing this skin”.
hanna fully accepts and depicts the complications within her matrilineal inquiries as she not only speaks to the loss, grief and rage in but also celebrates the simultaneous beauty and connection of its legacy. In the middle of “mother looks at me”, she uses sensorial storytelling to convey the pleasure and delicacies of her maternal lineage in saying “lay out a feast in words of recipes made by feel / mother, grandmother, great grandmother taught me / I am the grape vine leaf / the spiced meat gently tucked into tender dough / the syrup poured on sweets by gnarled hands” (65).
lisan al’asfour poignantly captures the heart-breaking realities of grief and loss experienced within a matrilineal Middle Eastern Canadian relationship. natalie hanna navigates a colonized world with a visceral and inspiring voice to reclaim her and her mother’s truths, allowing readers to surrender to its waves of feeling and moving.
Born and raised in Malaysia, Amanda Jeysing is a digital storyteller, writer, food enthusiast and cycle breaker now based on unceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (colonially known as Ottawa) who uses her passions for writing, food, wellness and dance to share her contributions to amplying decolonial narratives of freedom. When not binging on podcasts or sharing food with chosen family (or practicing yoga), you can find Amanda having a dance party in her living room.