Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Bitter English
    Bitter English
    Bitter English
    Ebook94 pages31 minutes

    Bitter English

    By Ahmad Almallah

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Imagine you are a Palestinian who came to America as a young man, eventually finding yourself caught between the country you live in with your wife and daughter, and the home—and parents—you left behind. Imagine living every day in your nonnative language and becoming estranged from your native tongue, which you use less and less as you become more ensconced in the United States. This is the story told by Ahmad Almallah in Bitter English, an autobiography-in-verse that explores the central role language plays in how we construct our identities and how our cultures construct them for us.
     
    Through finely crafted poems that utilize a plainspoken roughness to keep the reader slightly disoriented, Almallah replicates his own verbal and cultural experience of existing between languages and societies. There is a sense of displacement to these poems as Almallah recounts the amusing, sad, and perilous moments of day-to-day living in exile. At the heart of Bitter English is a sense of loss, both of home and of his mother, whose struggle with Alzheimer’s becomes a reflection of his own reality in exile. Filled with wit, humor, and sharp observations of the world, Bitter English brings a fresh poetic voice to the American immigrant experience.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateSep 3, 2019
    ISBN9780226642789
    Bitter English

    Related to Bitter English

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Veneers

      Nov 1, 2021

      Like all good conquerors, the Burmese had the foresight to leave picturesque ruins. Americans find ruins fascinating because we fear being laid low, our great monuments atomized & tossed to the wind, our lawns left unruly, unkempt, untrimmed. The bud

      1 min read

    • Article

      Follow Them

      Nov 1, 2021

      Heartbroken over a football game, Autumnevening, of this kind of thing I’m not ashamednor of the twistiness of that diction,or wanting America to burnthough only certain parts deserve it,its forests are beautiful and have donenothing wrong, even the

      1 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      What is the uncanny valley? asks the student and I draw the graph on the board, and point to the lowest point, and then move up the slope; This is like a scarecrow, it’s kinda shaped like a human but you’re not sure; This is where you’d put a mannequ

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Rails

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Rails
      1 min read

    • Article

      Diaspora Sonnets

      Sep 1, 2022

      The old men drink their spritzers and gossipunder awnings. Red hued and blustery, like two roosters on the side of a road.Skyward they crane their necks and laugh, sometimes they wonder about kings and future kingsand how the muscles peer from their

      2 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Early such darkness, these oncoming nights& sure, I’m dull & even slow to concedehow mornings make equal, swerving measuresthere between those foremost shadowsalong the fence, amid the chickens & nerve,sheep & their indifference to any pair of foolsh

      3 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2023

      Let’s be GodFor a moment, Shall we?That which invites Composition,That which is suspended From a great height,The presence Of approximationHeavy in the meadows, I’m not afraid,And yet My shroud vanishesIn these lines, I am so weptPast weeping, And wh

      1 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      Moon river, swollen river, river of starholeand bright, harness river, lichen river,river we velvet with our filth.River of butter and river of witches, rivercracked open careful like egg, or burstapart, unleashing its violet load.River mouths, river

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Chinese Word for Sorry

      Mar 1, 2022

      My mother holds her apology in one hand, bowl of cut fruit bursting from her palm as if she were the tree whose branches bore blood rush apples, bruise purple pears, unholy screams of persimmons torn from sun, instead of a daughter without accent onl

      1 min read

    • Article

      On Bach

      Dec 1, 2022

      On Bach
      13 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      All I wantis a good night and coffee in the morningwithout conversation so I can considerhow my life— which made a new life—is still so incomplete. How can something smallmultiply to something large? Mathematics is a strange science.Prayer is an impo

      1 min read

    • Article

      A Nocturne for Eurydice

      Mar 15, 2022

      for “the maiden in her dark, pale meadow” Twilight through the roof of a rain forestshatters like a chandelier of green glass,the shrillness strafed by keening cicadasand unseen flocks of cockatoos that cawtheir catcalls at the meltdown of the sun. D

      2 min read

    • Article

      Five Plague Octets

      May 1, 2022

      The wolf plans to live with the lamb, the leopardto lie with the goat. It’s written in stoneand onion skin. The lion will eat straw,the snake will eat dust. It’s prophesiedin ball point on the palm of your hand.The date has been fixed for the wedding

      1 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List

      Jun 8, 2020

      These recent poetry collections offer poignant narratives and snapshots of racial injustice in America. The post An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List appeared first on The Millions.

      1 min read

    • Article

      AgentAdvice

      Oct 13, 2021

      I received five full manuscript requests from top agents after sending queries about my debut fiction manuscript starting in the summer of 2020. While I’m normally a patient person, this is how long I’ve been waiting for responses: 256 days, 254 days

      3 min read

    • Article

      Decision [de-, Caedere-, Latin]

      Mar 1, 2024

      Life is a series of decisions to move this poster to another room; that ass to some other chair.There isn’t really much to it, and then we’re done for. There was a time I wrote, seriously, about grief. I wonder whyI can’t do that anymore. Maybe it’s

      2 min read

    • Article

      What Living In A House Is Like

      May 1, 2022

      Standing in each stanza—no, I’m sorry—room. Standing in each room waslike standing in a tester stroke of wall paint. All these blobs of colors in rows and columns, the size of thumbs.Together—a portrait of potential. But blues leaped to yellow leaped

      1 min read

    • Article

      Toward A Unified Theory

      Jan 1, 2022

      Condemned to live inside the weatherof our moods What are you doing? Filling this bucket with waterand dumping it into the water They can’t excavate the amphitheater further because it extends backbeneath the houses We close their eyes not for thembu

      2 min read

    • Article

      Apology

      Mar 1, 2022

      My father would take the washclothand wring it out with both of his hands,the water falling like rain from a heavenhe controlled. He would wash my back,and I would watch him teach metenderness—the way he would guta deer, holding the ribs like a dance

      1 min read

    • Article

      Rot

      Sep 2, 2022

      Rot
      1 min read

    • Article

      Negative

      Sep 1, 2021

      Of course it’s not.Were you angry, wereyou sad? Are youa disgruntled former employeeof the earth? Youhave company. I knowsome walks can getyou nowhere. I’ve seenone child take awaya toy from anothernot because they wantedthe lamb or trainor drum, but

      1 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Jesse Nathan

      Jun 8, 2021

      Young gray cat puddled under the boxwood,Only the eyes alert. Appressed to dirt. That hissThe hiss of the grasses hissing What shouldWhat should. Blank road shimmers. On days like this,My mind, you hardlySeem to be.On days like these. No, no. See tha

      1 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2023

      And god created the waves and we the graves beneath, bodies madeparticulate by the force of water against water, water against rock, againsttime. I descend into the deep in a kind of prayer, listen to its centuries.Make me pay, will you, make me hurt

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Bitter English

    4/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Bitter English - Ahmad Almallah

      h43^book_preview_excerpt.htmlW]n8J!Nptƞ(ؑH IØLiѥҙ?נHI"n?8;f, ͭnѠHFlV.^BJ53.gRЧGA@A*{M=ie<6]_4; 8k~39?X_t݊>t^'fnJ^yйhG%2mh@Wstt%kf"Bt :JɈYMeCFةmTVHuV 6 aS>n~9oMY)Wܚ-7H5fǺ?*\^#oXFi#/BJ< k.#j8ҊeFSs?u*ĕ^#|܂,ů* "do?/o<{q0B &iYh/%Y&ິny^<lD!y6?ILF_>/vaXXW[5I $Jy )<9=yY.v W){a"eaʉݺIHRV꥽ي>aX<6~[dlMԹ=[2vO'kd@ HBnzlTa&8O Xe%,+.)k:#}]%kgeB{ųkGSWm|mLQ8XsJ ', DRd"%Nv*v| :s7VޱʦW٠FRSJŪv"w"oh:qD3$bXIOΥIDbjԖ,~Ϟ3V+cWDd PGOnybr&A,$*P8(?Y9ᘻAyGv̅ѻ3qjb@ym)ÝQ;?V CYv/כBP D9H}fT~~}4H}ƽ.8zN?4SE^HhCY|4 NX&09wTNu}@?xpM|*RZp "gBvјBG 7cXť@9y<%a.>oӀN/Uqrn+4`'?;/7*wh(Tc?`Ž*Fh btzNW PʃD Tmcb:gO1O9wj25:3cкN[.0 7E+m+bqDw/mKcR(f8 )?*D= SՉpι̫b\ [ {=|%j94WWI98P^]MF[17*(uaS`ƭNRthVvo<]Ӎox
      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1