Emi Mahmoud - Head Over Heels
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
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Featuring at Button Poetry Live, June 2017.
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"A burning bush without God is just a fire" 👏👏
"Our bodies, how they are 60% water but we still burn like driftwood."
No one punches you in the mouth with the reality of humanitarian crisis like Emi does. The numbers and facts, the personal stories, the call to action: she is masterfully using logos, pathos, and ethos to create poem after poem that shakes the mind and heart.
“I never wear shoes I can’t run in”
Gary Stallings can you describe the meaning of the last words "i cant run it", please? I didnt get the idea of it and cant translate the last sentence into my native language
A Shestakova what is your native language if I may ask? Maybe I could translate
Diana Markevičiūtė yes, of course, its russian
A Shestakova ah, I know it! Well, it basically means "я некогда ненашу ботинок с которами я немогу бегать" 🌸
Diana Markevičiūtė Thank you very much!🙏 This poem impressed me greatly and I tried to understand every sentence
They hand me the microphone as my shoulders sink under the weight of this dress.
The woman says, “The one millionth refugee just left South Sudan. Can you comment?”
I feel my feet rock back and forth on the heels my mother bought,
Begging the question, “Do we stay, or is it safer to choose flight?”
The woman says, “The one millionth refugee just left South Sudan. Can you comment?”
My mind echoes to the numbers:
One million gone, 400,000 dead in Darfur, two million displaced.
I feel this lump take over my throat as if each of those bodies just found a grave right here in my esophagus
Our once country, all north and south and east and west,
So restless the Nile couldn’t hold us together and you ask me to summarize.
They talk about the numbers as if this isn’t still happening, as if 500,000 didn’t just die in Syria
As if 5,000 aren’t still making their final stand at the bottom of the Mediterranean
As if there aren’t entire volumes full of fact sheets about our genocides
And now they want me to write one.
Fact: We never talked over breakfast because the warplanes would swallow our voices.
Fact: My grandfather didn’t want to leave home, so he died in a war zone.
Fact: A burning bush without God is just a fire.
I measure the distance between what know and what is safe to say on a microphone.
Do I talk about the violence, displacement?
Do I mention the sorrow? How it’s never as simple as what you see on TV?
How there are weeks’ worth of fear before the camera’s on?
Do I tell her about our bodies? How they are 60% water but we still burn like driftwood, making fuel of our sacrifice?
Do I tell her the men died first, mothers forced to watch the slaughter
And they came for our children, scattering them across the continent until our home sank, that even castles sink at the bite of the bomb?
Do I tell her about the elderly, our heroes, too weak to run, too expensive to shoot? How they would march them, hands raised, rifles at their backs into the fire?
How their walking sticks kept the flames alive?
It sounds too harsh for a bundle of wires and an audience to swallow,
Too relentless, like the valley that’s filled with the putrid smoke of our deaths
Is it better in verse? Can a stanza become a burial shroud?
Will it sting less if I say it softly? If you don’t see me cry will you listen better? Will the pain leave when the microphone does?
Why does every word feel like I’m saying my last?
30 seconds for the sound bite and now 3 minutes for the poem.
My tongue goes dry, the same way we died, becoming ash without ever having been coal.
I feel my left leg go numb and I realize that I locked my knees, bracing for impact.
I never wear shoes I can’t run in.
Thx
Thanks
Thanks a lot
I am a simple woman: when I see Emi, I click.
"Do I mention the sorrow.." That line, and the stanza that followed it was stunning. This gave me goosebumps. Loved her pace. My pen just wanted to write after this.
yall dont even understand how excited i got when i saw that she made another poem like i rewatch how to translate a joke regularly
This is so heartbreaking and moving. I’m speechless.
"How their walking sticks kept the fire alive..."
When she started talking about the elderly 😣 I literally cried y’all
"Can a stanza become a burial shroud?"
Wow. Her words are so beautiful.
this poem is the realest shit. it gave me chills.
there's too many lines in this poem that made my jaw unhinge
Always so strong and powerful. Always lovely to watch her perform her pieces.
i have absolutely no words. please never stop making poetry. you are insanely talented and moving. you inspire me.
Wowww👏👏👏this is pure talent...i cant even make a good easy
I am speechless,this such a moving and powerful poem
YES!!! LOVE ❤️ 💕 So powerful and true!
Veronica Franklin yes is true..
I absolutely love her and her words touch the heart so deeply SubhanaAllah. I aspire to write as well as her one day In Shaa Allah
So brilliant, and so many layers to the poem... Amazing...
I love this sister 💚 she has a magical way of captivating her audience almost forcing them to listen.
You express yourself in such a clear, superb, and artistic way.
I love this girl 💕
Speechless
This was amazing...
“A burning bush without God is just a fire.”
She is my favourite
Her words make you think! Open your eyes to what's important
i have chills
Im crying 😭
Woooooahhhh i love her
Wow.
WHERE IS SHE... I NEED A HUG
Fckin feel the same way.
fuck Emi's work is always amazing
Wow, there could be more said but I will just leave it at wow
Nice performance madam,..
She is good. I plagiarized one of her poem tilted "the color we ascribed to ourselves". I did that on a show.
That was cool girl
This is beautiful
1:02
👏🏾❤️
Can someone explain this poem to me please?
FACT: I'm a fan.
F U CK this is good
I never wear shoes
I can't run in
😭😭😭
"I never wear shoes, I can't run in" What does this mean????
@Aura Sweet Okay...so sweet of you