Suheir Hammad is a celebrated Palestinian-American poet, author, actress, and political activist. She was raised in Brooklyn by her parents, who were Palestinian refugees from Lydda. From these disparate influences, Hammad has woven into her work a common narrative of dispossession, not only in her capacity as an immigrant, a Palestinian and a Muslim, but as a woman struggling against society’s inherent sexism and as a poet in her own right.
Her books include:
Born Palestinian, Born Black (Harlem River Press, 1996)
Drops of this Story (Harlem River Press, 1996)
Zaatar Diva (Cypher Books 2006)
Breaking Poems (Cypher Books, 2008)
Hammad has received numerous awards, including the American Book Award (for Breaking Poems), the Arab American Book award for Poetry, the Audre Lourde Writing Award from Hunter College, and the Morris Center for Healing Poetry Award. Her work has been widely anthologized and also adapted for theater.
Her produced plays include Blood Trinity and breaking letter(s), and she wrote the libretto for the multimedia performance Re-Orientalism. An original writer and performer in the Tony-winning Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, Suheir also appeared in the 2008 Cannes Film Festival Official Selection Salt of This Sea (BPFF 2008), wrote the verses for the short When I Stretch Forth Mine Hand, by O.R. Hamilton, and wrote and performed in the short Into Egypt (BPFF2011).
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Suheir Hammad performing at TED Talks: Poems of war, peace, women, power