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May 2020

"Gentleman at Leisure" by Jason Steel after Gu Cheng   the fish on the counter—the fish wrapped in newspaper—the door to the kitchen—blue— the bird is rapping dee da on the window pane—open the ground to bed the bulbs always tips up— tulips— two lips—swinging dee dee—the weight of the fish dancing back to the air on a string— and your legs stuck out—jerking forth    "Brits Abroad" by Jason Steel

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"0 matter" by Christina Battikha  For Nada, Toni and Rana   We lazed on ottomans above the azure Under blue pallor, gazing Into the gauze that makes discreet The meeting of the sea’s cracked plate And the sky’s bowl, blurring Their embrace, my hostess, risen In the doorway in her billowing dress Sea-goddess green and barred with sky, feeling A memory resurface: “One day last year the water was not Like this, but smooth and whole, a sheet Of sapphire over the sea’s round mouth Stilling its gasp, muffling its stilled sighs— The sea was flat that day, and mute, and out Of its depths the plastic swelled and rose To bobble like balloons and balls along The beachless

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"Floating Hair" by Samia Soubra The ocean didn’t stop moving all night Neither did the woman I lay beside: She too rolled in forceful exhales Snatching space like the mounting tides. The lip of the sea was coming for me And so was the woman I lay beside. Birds of prey circled the surface of her mind, Dying to dive               To scavenge the fruits of her world inside. Like the beach, I fell apart   Eaten alive       By the roaring tides Of the woman I lay beside. She wanted what I could not give. Seaweed insecurity Gripped

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Somewhere in the airspace above the English Channel, Palestinian actor Hadi Al-Shawish is on a flight to his next gig in London when Air Traffic Control announces a new legislation banning citizens of Muslim majority countries from entering the UK. Upon landing, he is met by Immigration Officer Jessminder “Jess” Sidhu and detained in a cell. In order to keep himself occupied, Hadi rehearses his lines for the show. The following scenes take place halfway through the play. An oblique stroke / indicates the point of interruption in overlapping dialogue  SCENE 4 1:00 pm. Jess enters and looks exhausted. Chaos ensues in the

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Photograph by Nour Annan الحياة كالموج البحر، نادرة بين الصفوف تمضي قدمًا * على عواصم العواطف نتيجة الرياح تهمس إلى الماء، قوم، قوم يا عشيقي وروح، روح من قدري، فتمضي قدمًا * بين وحوش الأعماق و سحر الآفاق تمضي باللّجوء بعيداً عن الحدود وتتجول في الوجود وتمضي قدمًا نحو الشاطئ المتلألئ الذي يحاصر كنز الحق والحب * كُلما تقترب بوجه الضغط تشْمُخ، فوق جاذبيّة الصمت والخضوع لِلصفوف * وكُلما تقترب و تنمو و تتجمع طاقة، صرخة، ضجة تفاجئ الدهر وتجمّد الهواء وتتولع كل خلاياها وتُطْلق خيالها مواجهة وجهًا لوجه الشاطئ في عينيه * ومهما انكسرت وانتشرت تمضي قدمًا فكما انت موجة بحر، يا حياتي

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"Untitled" by Bariaa Sanioura History gallops over the margins of your page, what’s a story, but its plural all over the world? Arabic lulls ageless in your ears, but to you what most matters is temporal in this world.  The Sheikh with a gold pen in his pocket, the girl lathering her father’s head with musk,and you—pearling over Whitman’s poems—all have a lover’s quarrel with the world. A riddle of childhood loss soaks the rearview mirror in an Arizona desert,and you drive past the unsaid but ignite nothing immoral in this world.  When you put your head down to

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View of Tripoli. Photo by Nur Turkmani I write this the night before Ramadan, from my home in Tripoli. A night where families in Tripoli would have otherwise gathered at mosques to pray, gone to supermarkets to stack up on dates and almonds, visited neighbors and discussed what desserts they would prepare for the first iftar. Instead, people are desperate and angry. I see it right in front of me — in my mother’s face, as she tries to create some semblance of Ramadan by turning on old white plastic lamps. In my brother’s scrunched up face and tired eyes,

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Gabriella remembers watching President Michel Aoun’s first speech after October 17, the first day of the 2019 protests in Lebanon, and being stunned by the absurdity of his discourse. Since then, her pop art illustrations have parodied Lebanon's ruling elite - from the melting away of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri to the bankrupt Banque du Liban. With the world coming to a pause, Gabriella yearns to return to the streets, especially when she watches the news.

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Introduction In 1967, Palestinian photographers and filmmakers Salafa Jadallah, Mustapha Abu Ali, and Hani Jawhariyah came together in Amman to create the Photography Section in the Fatah Information Office and a year later started a film collective known as the Palestine Film Unit.((Rona Sela, “Seized in Beirut: The Plundered Archives of the Palestinian Cinema Institution and Cultural Arts Section,” Anthropology of the Middle East 12, no. 1 (Summer 2017): 89.)) After the Black September civil war that resulted in the expulsion of the PLO by the King Hussein regime, the Film Unit followed the PLO to Beirut.((Nadia Yaqub, Palestinian Cinema in

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