On our last episode, we talked about welcoming refugees in the U.S. And it got me thinking about what it’s like to live away from the place where you’re from, especially if it’s in another part of the world. Say your mother is Lebanese and, I don’t know, your father’s…American but also grew up in Beirut, and their circumstances meant that you grew up in Cyprus and Pakistan and spent your later childhood and adolescence in Baltimore and they taught you English rather than Arabic so your mother’s family’s language lives in your brain but in a kind of ethereal way, not one you can just converse in. How do you relate to your roots in Lebanon? To Arabic? Where’s your home? What’s your mother tongue?

You’ve probably been wondering about that scenario, and of course you started listening to this episode for the answers. So it saddens me to tell you that, while those questions are at the heart of this episode, we can’t just give you the answers. They’re essay questions, not multiple choice. They’re too individual and complex, and, really, they keep shifting around as time goes by. Luckily, we have ways of delving into them. And if you were thinking, oh, poetry’s probably a good way, I don’t blame you. It’s the end of April, which, along with being the cruelest month, according to T.S. Eliot, is also National Poetry Month. We’ve all been thinking in poetry for the past 30 days. So, to keep that going, I found a poet to help us think through the dynamics of that scenario. A scenario that is, coincidentally, quite similar to her own life, and which she explores in her first book of poems, which came out on April 28th. The poet is janan alexandra, and her book is come from. 

On this episode we talk about how the geographical trajectory of her childhood has shaped her relationship to place and language, her evolving relationship to the United States, and why it can be helpful to let go of the idea of being whole.

Credits

Inner States is produced and edited by me, Alex Chambers. Our associate producer is Dom Heyob. Our master of social media is Jillian Blackburn. We get support from Eoban Binder, LuAnn Johnson, Sam Schemenauer, Payton Whaley, and Kayte Young. Our Executive Producer is Eric Bolstridge.

Our theme song is by Amy Oelsner and Justin Vollmar. Additional music this week from L. Boyd Carithers, whose album Doom Town is coming out soon, and on which album you might hear our poet, janan alexandra, playing the fiddle. We heard, in order, Whistle Rag, Dinnertime for the Cats, and Last Month on the Corner.