How to Bury a Curious Child

By Amirah Al Wassif

Amirah Al Wassif's latest English-language collection of poetry explores how women must cope in a culture that suppresses everything in them, even their curiosity. Her words fearlessly display and challenge the impact that the repressive male attitude has on women in the Muslim culture. 

 

Amirah Al Wassif's poetry comes from a place that is both deeply personal and universal, because she is the curious girl who has to question everything in her everyday life just to retain her own identity.

 

As Amirah Al Wassif puts it, she was that little girl who used to play hide and seek with her writing ghosts, although the male world used to introduce her as a poor woman who had no right to express herself, she decided to sing out the hidden truth about many women who are deprived of liberty around the world.

 

"I wrote this collection of poems for Catherine, Adel, Christine, Elizabeth, Kristina, Aisha, Zainab and Rachel. For all those who were trapped and who were insulted and who were treated like dolls. I wrote this poetry collection for all of you."

 

How to Bury a Curious Girl is a forbidden song that shivers inside every woman's chest and will resonate with all women from every culture and background.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GusGus Press
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201194697

Book preview

For my mother, sister and brother and for my hero, my father the man who believed in me and taught me how to believe in myself.

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To bury a curious girl

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When I was younger,

I stood on a mountain of pillows

with a brave decision to swallow a whole finger.

My father insulted me because I am curious.

All his life he wished to have a non-trouble baby

whatever girl or boy.

My forefathers preferred to bury baby girls rather than put them

In carriages and sing them a lullaby.

I was born with a great motivation to scratch the sky

Upon my shoulders, crazy monkeys and heavy weights,

I used to bake my grief each night

And through the daylight, while they’re trying to sell me,

I spend my time calculating the distance between my gender and my awaited funeral.

When I took my first steps, my tribe circled around me like bees.

They approached figuring out that I have thighs and breasts.

They tucked me in the obedience pocket, they dwelled me in an iron cage.

They ate my wings, my ears.

When I was younger,

I crawled towards my father’s shoulders, I whispered, how far does the world extend?

He frowned and replied just, look at the space between your legs.

How I Washed My Heart

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My spine is made of steel

so, I can’t fold my arms around my body to pray.

All I can do is open my heart to the rain coming from a nearby cloud that hovered softly in the air like a holy verse on an innocent child’s lips.

My mother taught us that painting our hands and feet with henna brought more blessings to the body and the soul.

We believe that putting our limbs in henna will heal our diseases and end our sufferings. I asked my sisters to paint my spine with henna.

Then, it would be colorful and not steel anymore.

I read once,

Wash your heart before your face.

I felt confused, and wondered,

how?

When I was younger, I had a normal spine not one made of steel. I’d wash my limbs and face five times a day to prepare myself for prayer with my father, mother, and siblings on the roof of our wooden house.

I used to wash my body only, but I never figured out how to wash my heart.

Once, I was playing hide and seek with my brother and I tried my best to go up the roof where the haystacks gathered.

I found the greatest spiritual waterfall ever: it covered my heart with belief and pureness.

I fell down when I tried to hide from my brother

I learned how the hand of Allah washes our hearts through troubles and crises

and how it picks us up sweetly to keep us safe from daily dangerous flights.

Homeland tale

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I sit on my couch, braiding my doll’s hair, breathing in and out through a dying poem hanging up there on the air.

My mother calling, her soft voice allows the peace to get in.

My bones sinking in the green of freedom.

My grandfather chewing gum and waving at Nightingale which hovered by the blessings.

My soul made of sugar and wine

I taste the mercy every second, while God showering the ground with verses and music.

I play hide and seek with four orphans, they laugh loudly and steal the jokes from my secret pocket.

I seem like a clown here in my private Spot, I feel like a child