MONTHLY POETRY COLLECTION: “THE THING ABOUT FEATHERS” BY NATHALIE HANDAL
Our Monthly Poetry Collection is published on the first Tuesday of each month and curated by Palestinian-American poet Zeina Azzam. For the month of November, we feature “The Thing about Feathers” by Nathalie Handal.
Nathalie Handal is the quintessential global citizen. She is a multilingual Palestinian author, having lived in numerous countries and assimilated a multiplicity of experiences and histories into her writings. Her family hails from Bethlehem and she was raised “in Latin America, France and the Middle East, and educated in Asia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.” Handal is a poet, playwright, literary travel columnist, nonfiction writer, and a professor at New York University. Her work, which is published widely, has garnered a number of prizes and honors. Among her publications, Handal’s seminal edited compendium, The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, is regarded as a critical resource in the field. Her most recent poetry collection, Life in a Country Album, won the Palestine Book Award.
This month’s poem by Nathalie Handal, “The Thing about Feathers,” is an exploration of home and displacement. The reader is unsure about the specific place about which she writes, but nevertheless feels the weight of dislocation. At the same time, one senses a necessary and paradoxical lightness: she writes that those who left only take keys and letters and photos, and their neighbors “turn into / a gate of feathers.” Perhaps the poet points to ephemeral memories and nostalgia with these words, strives to hold onto the images of the various homes she has inhabited. The poem ends with an acknowledgment that it is writing that keeps her connected to home, that the notebook her father gives her is “where I’ll keep my country.”
About Zeina Azzam
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. Her poems are published widely in literary journals, anthologies, and edited volumes. Zeina’s chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, was released by The Poetry Box in May 2021. She holds an M.A. in Arabic literature from Georgetown University.