Mondays are a Bitch, and so is She: Suheir Hammad

by Kelly

I first heard about Suheir Hammad when reading her interview in New York Magazine alongside Gloria Steinem. I thought the interview was engaging and pretty damn interesting. Hammad, born in Jordan and immigrated as a child to Brooklyn with her Palestinian parents, has a sharp sense of humor and unique perspective on culture, sexuality and being a woman of Middle Eastern descent.

When asked what her relationships are like, for example, Hammad replied,

“I am so old-fashioned. I’ve never lived with a man. I am completely about the independence of paying my own rent. It was really important for me in my twenties. Because when I left school and my parents’ home—I was raised that when you leave, it’s to your husband’s home, or a coffin.”

After reading the interview, I couldn’t help but google Suheir Hammad and find out more about her. Not only is she a poet, author and activist, but she is an amazing Spoken Word performer. I was particularly drawn to her “Not Your Exotic, Not Your Erotic” piece. My advisor and mentor at college is doing work on the problematic “othering” and exotification of Muslim women, which I’ve spent lots of time discussing with her. This topic is of particular interest to me and I thought that Hammad’s poem about her personal experience with exotification was extremely powerful.

Here are some of my favorite clips (including her Exotic, Erotic piece):

This is possibly my favorite poem of Hammad’s, on 9/11. Beautiful & moving:

Another piece on the fallout of 9/11 (with an all too brief introduction by the ever-adorable Mos Def):

I can’t help but end by posting this hilarious, too-perfect-for-words excerpt from the New York Magazine interview (SH = Suheir Hammad, GS = Gloria Steinem):

“NY: Suheir, your female friends, do they consider themselves feminists?

SH: I have this conversation all the time. I think they all do. Whether or not they would say it publicly, I think it comes from not wanting to be seen as political, and not wanting to make other people uncomfortable. I think of feminism as a socially just and imaginative world. You know, in my twenties I was taught that feminism meant we had to be supersmart, in the realm of intellectualism—to make rational, detached, unemotional pleas. But now I think what Gloria and all our sisters have given us is imagination. It’s a question of: Can I imagine that world?

NY: A guy at work said to ask, Since the movement has succeeded so fully, is there anything left to do?

GS: [Laughs] So, are we going to break his kneecaps now?

SH: No, we’re going to give him a Brazilian bikini wax.

GS: Tell him I’ll know that we’re getting someplace when I go into Central Park and see white men wheeling babies of color and getting well paid for it. There is no postfeminism—it’s like saying “post-democracy”!

Hope you’re all having a good Monday! — Dollface

What do you think of Suheir Hammad? Please share your thoughts or links to other clips or poems. Also, I’d love to hear your suggestions for future “Monday = Bitch” spotlight posts.