Rifqa

Rifqa is Mohammed El-Kurd's debut collection of poetry, written in the tradition of Ghassan Kanfani's Palestinian Resistance Literature. The book narrates the author's own experience of dispossession in Sheikh Jarrah--an infamous neighborhood in Jerusalem, Palestine, whose population of refugees continues to live on the brink of homelessness at the hands of the Israeli government and US-based settler organizations. The book, named after the author's late grandmother who was forced to flee from Haifa upon the genocidal establishment of Israel, makes the observation that home takeovers and demolitions across historical Palestine are not reminiscent of 1948 Nakba, but are in fact a continuation of it: a legalized, ideologically-driven practice of ethnic cleansing.

“"May these poems challenge and awaken you. May they shake you into action. May they help you find the words for what you already know to be true... These words remind me that home is a series of shared memories, not brick and mortar. Home is where we go to remember and revisit who we''ve always been. Mohammed El-Kurd''s poetry is a home returned to us." --Aja Monet, from the foreword "Rooted in Palestine and ranging across the world, these are poems that hurl themselves at the boundaries of what poems can do; lyrics that put a premium on anger, that reflect the serrated edges of living in the world today, that gift new and powerful phrases to the lexicon of liberation." --Ahdaf Soueif, author of Cairo: My City, Our Revolution " Rifqa is an absolute marvel, and El-Kurdis precisely the kind of poet-- Palestinian or otherwise--we need right now:unafraid of the truth. The legacy of his grandmother, the eponymous Rifqa,flits across these poems, and with it comes wisdom, hope, and, most cruciallyof all, memory ... El-Kurd doesn''t flinch from the violence and death that comeswith dispossession. But make no mistake. These are the poems of the defiantly,unapologetically, wholly alive." --Hala Alyan, author, The Arsonists'' City " Rifqa is an admixture of the mostintimate violence--wounds that are as difficult to reveal as they are toheal--together with song and dance that beseech the sun to sustain this life andthese lands that ensure it. Rifqa El-Kurd lives in Mohammed and Mohammedbreathes life into us, scented with fire and jasmine flowers, so that we mayknow her, and the victory she embodied, too." --Noura Erekat, author, Justice for Some: Law and the Question ofPalestine " Rifqa is the collision of strengthand vulnerability. Earnest in its exploration of the grave realities in onecorner of the globe, it is a banging on the doors of the world. It illustratesthe wit that is necessary to weave together the tragic with the hopeful and thepainful with the joyful. Rifqa is a testament to overcoming fear in expression,a book that will resonate with you, one you hold and return to over and overagain." --Mariam Barghouti, journalist,researcher, activist, and commentator "Palestinians have long fought with poetry. Napoleon''s army in Palestine wasdefeated by warrior poets. El-Kurd''s words are part of this long and dazzlinglineage. An elegy to our ancestors, maternal, whose resistance we hope tohonor, each poem is a rock hurled at the occupier and the oppressor. Abeautiful and important book." --Randa Jarrar, author, Love Is an Ex-Country "Mohammed El-Kurd weaves the ancestors and Land into every breath of thesepoems. ''Every grandmother is a Jerusalem,'' El-Kurd reminds us, injasmine-scented memory, in liminal space and punch line, in auto- andanti-biography. Here is poetry the whole of us can turn and return to--even ingrief, even in contradiction. Liberating itself from respectability & othercolonialist gazes weaponized against Palestinians, here is poetry insistent ontruths we''ve carried for generations. JERUSALEM IS OURS. El-Kurd writes thiswith its whole chest, knowing our lives--the whole & future of us--depend onit. --George Abraham, author, Birthright "El-Kurd''s poems are attuned to language as a terrain of struggle.Refusing the myriad euphemisms that conceal and authorize Israel''s ongoingviolence, he insists on a clarity that emplots each act in a field of history ...But if El-Kurd''s poems witness the relentless reiterations of settler colonialviolence, they also document the rebuttals and tendernesses--Mahfoutha Ishtayyehchaining herself to a tree, "olive skin on olive skin," in the face of anIsraeli bulldozer; Rifqa El-Kurd welcoming her grandson home from school each daywith jasmine wrapped in Kleenex--seeds of other futures nestled within thepresent." -- JewishCurrents "Paying powerful homage to his Palestinian people''s lives andstruggles, while elegantly educating the reader, Mohammed El-Kurd''s debutpoetry collection, Rifqa , is a symbolic masterpiece ... The poet understandspolitics is as much about emotion as it is logic, and his devastating way withwords lets him deploy this knowledge in full." -- TheNew Arab "Like other Palestinian poets, from Fadwa Tuqan to Rashid Hossein toMahmoud Darwish, Kurd has a significant role to play in forging aninternational front against settler-colonialism and imperialism around theworld ... We should be grateful that this is Kurd''s first book rather than hislast, and that we can look forward to many decades of poetic innovation fromthis extraordinarily multifaceted and politically engaged poet." -- MiddleEast Eye ''At24, Mohammed El-Kurd is already a poet of note. He is also a visual artist, andan activist like Rifqa. He has synthesized and overcome his American educationin poetry. He no longer feels like he has to hide in his words.'' -- The Markaz Review”

“Witnessing Mohammed El-Kurd cut down dragons with the mere shift in his gaze has been a gift to our generation. Reading him is a journey into our collective pit of pain, of unreasonable loss, of screams unheard and unabating, of anger that he tells us - even anger - is a luxury. Mohammed El Kurd’s debut book of poetry is a self-portrait of a Palestinian child who has grown up besieged by nuclear-backed settlers in his own home protected, still, by his beloved grandmama Rifqa’s indomitable belief that her family and her people would prevail. Rifqa is an admixture of the most intimate violence - wounds that are as difficult to reveal as they are to heal- together with song and dance that beseech the sun to sustain this life and these lands that ensure it. Rifqa El-Kurd lives in Mohammed and Mohammed breathes life into us - scented with fire and jasmine flowers - so that we may know her, and the victory she embodied, too.”
—Noura Erekat, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine

“Rooted in Palestine and ranging across the world, these are poems that hurl themselves at the boundaries of what poems can do; lyrics that put a premium on anger, that reflect the serrated edges of living in the world today, that gift new and powerful phrases to the lexicon of liberation.”
—Ahdaf Soueif, author of Cairo: My City, Our Revolution

“May these poems challenge and awaken you. May they shake you into action. May they help you find the words for what you already know to be true... These words remind me that home is a series of shared memories, not brick and mortar. Home is where we go to remember and revisit who we’ve always been. Mohammed El-Kurd’s poetry is a home returned to us.”
—Aja Monet, from the foreword

“Rifqa is an absolute marvel and El-Kurd is precisely the kind of poet—Palestinian or otherwise—we need right now: unafraid of the truth. The legacy of his grandmother, the eponymous Rifqa, flits across these poems and with it comes wisdom, hope and, most crucially of all, memory. ‘She left Haifa to go to Haifa/to go to Haifa,’ he writes of his grandmother. This is a collection of remembering, not just the past but the unfolding present, one that is constantly facing erasure; of his own place in this lineage, he writes, ‘What I write is an almost./I write an attempt.’ El-Kurd doesn’t flinch from the violence and death that comes with dispossession. But make no mistake. These are the poems of the defiantly, unapologetically, wholly alive.”
—Hala Alyan, author of The Arsonists' City

“Rifqa is the collision of strength and vulnerability. Earnest in its exploration of the grave realities in one corner of the globe, it is a banging on the doors of the world. It illustrates the wit which is necessary to weave together the tragic with the hopeful, and the painful with the joyful. RIFQA, is a testament to overcoming fear in expression. A book that will resonate with you. One which you hold and return to over and over again.”
—Mariam Barghouti

“Palestinians have long fought with poetry. Napoleon's army in Palestine was defeated by warrior poets. El-Kurd's words are part of this long and dazzling lineage. An elegy to our ancestors, maternal, whose resistance we hope to honor, each poem a rock hurled at the occupier and the oppressor. A beautiful and important book.”
—Randa Jarrar, Love Is An Ex-Country

“At its heart, Rifqa is a call to build a better elsewhere for Palestinians, in & beyond language: an ars poetica beyonded into unity intifada, where Palestinians are loved into present tense. Beyond a failed imagination of poetry that’s more “theatre over thunder,” beyond a poetics where elegy is merely a symptom of border, Mohammed El-Kurd weaves the ancestors and Land into every breath of these poems. “Every grandmother is a Jerusalem,” El-Kurd reminds us, in jasmine-scented memory, in liminal space and punchline, in auto- and anti-biography. Here is poetry the whole of us can turn and return to - even in grief, even in contradiction. Liberating itself from respectability & other colonialist gazes weaponized against Palestinians, here is poetry insistent on truths we’ve carried for generations. JERUSALEM IS OURS. El-Kurd writes this with its whole chest, knowing our lives - the whole & future of us—depend on it.”
—George Abraham, author of Birthright

Mohammed El-Kurd is an internationally-touring poet and writer from Jerusalem, Palestine. His work has been featured in The Guardian, This Week In Palestine, Al-Jazeera English, The Nation, and the forthcoming Vacuuming Away Fire anthology, among others. Mohammed graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a B.F.A. in Writing, where he created Radical Blankets, an award-winning multimedia poetry magazine. He is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Poetry from Brooklyn College. His poetry-oud album, Bellydancing On Wounds, was released in collaboration with Palestinian musical artist Clarissa Bitar. Apart from poetry and writing, el-Kurd is a visual artist, printmaker, and most recently, co-designer of a fashion collection with Serbian designer Tina Gancev. Mohammed has spent his undergraduate weekends performing poetry at campuses and cultural centers across the United States and hopes to continue in the post-COVID-19 era.

Each day after school, Mohammed El-Kurd's grandmother welcomed him at the door of his home with a bouquet of jasmine. Her name was Rifqa--she was older than Israel itself and an icon of Palestinian resilience. With razor-sharp wit and glistening moral clarity, El-Kurd lays bare the brutality of Israeli settler colonialism. His poems trace Rifqa's exile from Haifa to his family's current dispossession in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem, exposing the cyclical and relentless horror of the Nakba. El-Kurd's debut collection definitively shows that the Palestinian struggle is a revolution, until victory.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.