This is Why We Dance by Mohammed el-Kurd

31 Days of Poetry: Day 29.

The 29th of August’s poem is ‘This is Why We Dance’ by Palestinian writer, journalist and poet, Mohammed el-Kurd, which was published in his 2021 debut collection, ‘RIFQA’ (Haymarket Books).

This Is Why We Dance
          for Carmel

Home in my memory is a green, worn-out couch
and my grandmother in every poem:
every jasmine picked off the backlash,
every backlash picked off the tear gas,
and tear gas healed with yogurt and onions,
with resilience,
with women chanting, drumming
on pots and pans
with goddamns and hasbiyallahs.

They work tanks, we know stones.

2008, during the Gaza bombings
my ritual of watching TV
ran between grieving
and Egyptian belly dance music.
I fluctuated between hatred and adoration,
stacking and hoarding Darwish's reasons to live
                           sometimes.                                           believing them,
                           sometimes dipping my bread in indulgence,
knowing a child is breadless, in Khan Yunis,
dipped in a roof's rubble. . .

If you ask me where I'm from it's not a one-word answer.
Be prepared   seated,     sober,      geared up.
If hearing about a world other than yours
makes you uncomfortable,
drink the sea,
cut off your ears,
blow another bubble to bubble your bubble and the pretense.
Blow up another town of bodies in the name of fear.

This is why we dance:
My father told me: "Anger is a luxury we cannot afford."
Be composed, calm, still —laugh when they ask you,
smile when they talk, answer them,
educate them.

This is why we dance:
If I speak, I'm dangerous.
You open your mouth,
raise your eyebrows.
You point your fingers.
This is why we dance:
We have wounded feet but the rhythm remains,
no matter the adjectives on my shoulders.

This is why we dance:
Because screaming isn't free.

Please tell me:
Why is anger -even anger- a luxury
to me?

---

I could’ve chosen any number of poems from this collection but something about the way Mohammed el-Kurd speaks of anger and the way that the Palestinian people (and other oppressed peoples) are always denied even that really struck a chord.

Anger is (intentionally) painted as something dangerous - the angry person is someone who must be controlled- rather than as a legitimate, reasonable and rational response to illegitimate, unreasonable and irrational behaviour.

There are so many reasons to be angry and every single one of them is justified, but if your anger gets to look like anger and still go unpunished, what a luxury that is indeed.

See you on day thirty,

Tasnim