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Poetry | شعر

LETTER TO A CHILDLESS WOMAN

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Sara Mourad

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CONTRIBUTOR المساهم/ة
Sara Mourad

Sara Mourad is a bilingual writer and interdisciplinary scholar from Beirut. Her work engages questions of identity, memory, and belonging at the intersection of intimate and public life. She has published articles, essays, reviews, and commentaries on gender and sexual politics and curated academic and cultural events bridging theory and practice in the study of media, literature, and visual cultures. Sara received her PhD in communication at the University of Pennsylvania and is an assistant professor of media studies at the American University of Beirut. She is currently at work on her first monograph titled The Skull in the Attic: An Intimate History of Home in Postwar Lebanon.   سارة مراد كاتبة وأكاديمية، مختصّة بالفكر والنقد النسوي. تستكشف كتاباتها تقاطعات الهويّة والذاكرة والمكان في التاريخ الشخصي والعام، كما سياسات الجنس والجندر. صدرت لها نصوص ومقالات في مجلات أكاديمية وأدبية ومنصات إعلامية. تعمل حالياً على مفهوم الأمومة في سير النساء. تشغل مراد منصب أستاذة مساعدة في برنامج دراسات الإعلام في الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت، حيث تدمج بين الممارسة الأكاديمية وتنظيم الفعاليات الثقافية في مقاربتها لقضايا الإعلام والجندر.  

Sara Mourad
Poetry | شعر

LETTER TO A CHILDLESS WOMAN

By Sara MouradSeptember 5, 2020December 6th, 2020No Comments
"Callisto" by Omar Khouri, 2019, Gouache on 300 gsm rough Arches paper 111x77 cm

You wonder, as you contemplate the world’s end,
If you had done well, done right, by your unborn children.
Your womb is no safe place for a child. You know this.
Your womb cannot make life for this life.
This you knew all along.
You told yourself you can’t bear children
That the flesh would not stick for long
With each blood cycle, you told yourself
Is it because you knew, all along
That you don’t want this life                 that you never did
That somehow you are here, because someone decided
That the time for you has come
By mere coincidence, you are here
And you could’ve never been born
Is it responsibility that you don’t want to assume
Is it the inevitable guilt that you refuse to carry
Like those that came before you, and didn’t know how
You wonder, as you contemplate the world’s end,
what life there is to give
To all those who are already here

Author

Sara Mourad is a bilingual writer and interdisciplinary scholar from Beirut. Her work engages questions of identity, memory, and belonging at the intersection of intimate and public life. She has published articles, essays, reviews, and commentaries on gender and sexual politics and curated academic and cultural events bridging theory and practice in the study of media, literature, and visual cultures. Sara received her PhD in communication at the University of Pennsylvania and is an assistant professor of media studies at the American University of Beirut. She is currently at work on her first monograph titledThe Skull in the Attic: An Intimate History of Home in Postwar Lebanon.

 

سارة مراد كاتبة وأكاديمية، مختصّة بالفكر والنقد النسوي. تستكشف كتاباتها تقاطعات الهويّة والذاكرة والمكان في التاريخ الشخصي والعام، كما سياسات الجنس والجندر. صدرت لها نصوص ومقالات في مجلات أكاديمية وأدبية ومنصات إعلامية. تعمل حالياً على مفهوم الأمومة في سير النساء. تشغل مراد منصب أستاذة مساعدة في برنامج دراسات الإعلام في الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت، حيث تدمج بين الممارسة الأكاديمية وتنظيم الفعاليات الثقافية في مقاربتها لقضايا الإعلام والجندر.