Arab-American Writers, Uneasy in Two Worlds

One of the hottest young hip-hop poets these days is Suheir Hammad, 29, who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan, and reared in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Six days a week Ms. Hammad stands onstage at the Longacre Theater in „Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway,“ chanting her heart out:

„Don’t seduce yourself with my
otherness my hair wasn’t put
on top of my head to entice you
into some mysterious black voodoo
the beat of my lashes
against each other ain’t some
dark desert beat it’s just
a blink.

DINITIA SMITH, NYT *) 20.2.03