‘My Mother Cannot Look at Me Without Wanting to Cry’
— Joyce Chong
What can we find in language? How words stem from one to another, how they shift and take on new meaning and new iterations. Hamze’s poem in the inaugural issue of the Shade Journal explores origin, family, and language, unearthing glimpses of the conflict that comes from being between two places, from being of two places. What rifts and new bridges migration leaves behind, what new challenges and fears replace the old. There are several moments in this poem that still you, that transform before your eyes. There are so many moments that have stayed with me, and I hope you’ll find the same in this poem as well.
PS. Check out the rest of this issue of the Shade Journal, I promise you won’t regret it.