Interview: Hayan Charara, “‘Arab American,’ for me, is one of many identifications.”

May 9th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker

According to the University of Arkansas Press’ site, “Hayan Charara was a visiting professor of poetry writing at the University of Texas at Austin in 2005. Before that he taught in New York City. He is the author of two collections of poetry, The Sadness of Others and The Alchemist’s Diary. Born in Detroit, Michigan, to immigrant parents, he currently lives in Texas. He is also a woodworker.” (Photo: Rawi)

MW: To what extent do you identify as an Arab American? How do you personally define the term? Is there a difference between an American Arab and an Arab American?

HC: “Arab American,” for me, is one of many identifications. I’m sure this is how many others see themselves — as Arab Americans, but also as Lebanese, or Palestinian, or men, women, husbands, wives, engineers, Detroiters, New Yorkers, Christians, Muslims, Jews, and so on.

As for the difference between “American Arab” and “Arab American,” I’m sure there is a distinction here that’s more than semantics, but I’m not aware of how others might be using them.

MW: In your introduction you first show some hesitation to define “Arab American” and to isolate a trend in the poets you gather in the anthology, but then you say that they all share an unapologetic identification with America. How do you reconcile these two points?

HC: My hesitation to define “Arab American” is a hesitation to give it a “once and for all” type of definition. This term means different things to different people. In my own family, we understood it differently. There are, among many of the poets in Inclined to Speak, an “unapologetically American” voices, which is to say that these poets are using an American vernacular, for instance, or are informed by American poetics (many of the poetic influences of the poets are American — not always, but often). These two things are compatible, too — that is a multi-faceted understanding of “Arab American” on the one hand, and the multi-faceted expressions of things American by the poets on the other.

MW: Are poets on the forefront of identity issues? Why or why not?

HC: It’s probably best to ask the poets themselves. I don’t know. Identity is certainly an issue dealt with, and one that readers and critics look to in poetry; but I can’t say for sure just how much of a priority is it for other poets.

MW: How are Arab American poets received in the non-American Arab world? How much is Arab American poetry on the radar screen of Arabs in other countries? To what extent does Arab American poetry overlap with Islamic poetry?

HC: Most poets aren’t that well known. Even famous poets don’t necessarily become household names. I recently went to see Robert Hass read — he won both the Pulitzer Prize this year, for his book Time and Materials, and he also won the National Book Award; he’s probably one of the most famous living American poets, if not one of the most famous American poets of the past 50 years. And he read in Houston, which boasts a very large and vibrant literary community–and I think maybe 100 attended. Compare that to the millions and millions who know the names of every baby some Hollywood actor has adopted, or some other phenomenon.

The point is, all poets tend to be lesser known. That said, Arab American poets are certainly not as well known as their non-Arab counterparts — though even this is tricky. Are we comparing them to African American poets? Asian American? Just “American” poets? I can say this — there was definitely a need for an anthology like Inclined to Speak. People want to know more, and this will get them started. But we are, in terms of a literary community, still young, still growing, and I think too that now more than ever people are listening to us.

I’m not sure how familiar readers in the Arab world are with Arab American poets. Some poets have international reputations, like Etel Adnan or Naomi Shihab Nye, and they travel to the Middle East, and give readings there. Some scholars, too have looked at Arab American works, and written about them in journals overseas.

As for the “overlap” with Islamic poetry, if it’s there, I am not that aware of it. As I mentioned, the influences tend to be more American, or, if they are “international,” they tend to be of poets who may be from other places than the United States (like Europe, or the Middle East — I think of poets like Milosz, or Darwish), but these poets generally aren’t associated with Islamic poetry.

MW: You note that Arab American poets have a way of being excluded from collections of American poetry. Do you think this is something endemic to Arab American poetry in particular, or is part of a larger trend of a widespread distaste for any sort of poetry that identifies deeply with any ethnicity, faith, or cultural group?

HC: Being excluded from the mainstream, or from literary canons, has been an experience that just about every group has endured. One needs only to look at anthologies of “contemporary” American poetry from a decade or two or three ago to note how very little space, if any at all, was devoted to black poets. Or to women. Or to members of other ethnic, religious or cultural groups. Each of these groups are excluded for different reasons, too.

MW: There is a long, deep tradition of Arab poetry, much of it religious. To what extent does the younger generation of Arab American poets see itself as heir to that longer tradition, rather than innovating something wholly new?

HC: There are some expressions of what might be termed “religious” poetry among Arab American poets, but I’m not sure how closely it resembles the religious tradition you’re referring to. Someone with a skilled ear, however, will hear some of the rhythms of Islamic poetry in the poems of Arab American poets. Or, there another person might see semblances in the ways that a poet celebrates this or that.

As far being “heirs” to a longer tradition, my guess is that most poets have a sense of both — being heirs, and being innovators. We have what came before us, as guides, as models, even as ways of thinking and creating to reject or turn our backs on; but whatever we do as poets, we always have those traditions to be influenced by. At the same time, we are always living in a “new” moment, and we can’t but help, I think, to create new ways of seeing the world, and expressing ourselves — maybe not “wholly new” but definitely not the same old, same old.

MW: How, if at all, is poetry as a profession changing in the face of new media and technology?

HC: I’m sure poetry is changing in ways that a lot of us can’t even see right now. I just had a talk with an older poet who gave this advice: write on paper. He was worried that we, younger poets, were too bound to the laptop or computer; that by not writing out our poems longhand, we were losing something important. I myself haven’t written on paper in a long time — now and then, out of necessity, I have to, but usually, I am at my computer. And I’m sure it’s changed how I write. I can, after all, simply copy and paste whole lines, or entire pages if I want, and with a single stroke, wipe it all out. With paper, I’d have to at lest live with what I don’t like a little longer, and it would come out a little more slowly. That’s got to have an effect. What that is, exactly, someone else is going to have to tell me.

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