(Jazz music plays)

Avren: From Dublin, California this is Waves Breaking. (Jazz music plays) A podcast, in
which I, Avren Keating, search for and talk to my contemporaries in trans and
genderqueer poetry. Coming up in today's show, I interview Amir Rabiyah. Amir is a
queer, disabled and two-spirit writer of Lebanese, Syrian, Cherokee and European
ancestry. They have been published in Mizna, Sukoon, The Feminist Wire, Bird'sThumb,
Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, and more.
This is my first venture into podcasting and I apologize in advance to the audiophiles for
the sound quality of this interview. I'm still learning this whole podcast thing, so I hope
you enjoy, nonetheless. (Jazz music fades)
Avren: Welcome Amir to Waves Breaking, it's so nice to have you with me.
Amir: Thank you for having me.
Avren: So I was wondering if you wouldn't mind talking to me a little bit about Writing
the Walls Down and how you and Helen came together and started compiling the
anthology.
Amir: We met when we were in grad school, at the New College of California in 2005,
and we became really close friends. And as many of you know, or might know, grad
school can be a really intense experience, especially if you're queer and trans, and kind
you're having to navigate a lot of different things. So, Helen and I became really good
friends and one of the things that we started to talk about was issues around intimacy and
vulnerability in our relationships. And part of that came out of the fact that a lot of the
people we knew were organizing against the prison industrial complex, against the wall
in Palestine and Israel, the wall on the US/Mexico border and things like that. But a lot of
people in our community were having a hard time being vulnerable in their intimate
relationships, were having issues with letting their guard down, being really closed off in
their intimate relationships. We were finding that in our friendships, in our relationships
between our lovers and things like that. And I was finding it within myself too--this guard
that would come up, you know, in times of conflict and different things. So we just into a
lot of conversations about that, how come it's easier for us to go out and to do this kind of
external work, and how much more difficult it is to actually bring that work home into
our lives, and into our relationships. So a few years after we were done with grad school,
we wanted to do a show, and so we did a show at the National Queer Arts Festival. We
invited different performers and artists to submit their proposals and we did a multimedia show and it was really awesome. And then after that was done, we still felt like we
wanted to keep that work going, to keep these conversations going. And so then, we were
like, "Let's do this anthology." And that's when we sat down and we started sending out
our query letters to places, and A.J. from Trans-Genre Press wrote this really beautiful
letter back. We met and everything was in alignment. We all got along really well. And so
that was everything that happened before the anthology itself, a bit of the history.

Avren: Did you have any sort of specific things you were looking for when you were
selecting pieces for the anthology? Was there an arc that you wanted to go through the
selected works?
Amir: That's a really good question. I think that the arc kind of came after we had picked
the pieces. Really we wanted pieces from a diverse spectrum of people in the LGBT
community, we wanted a representation of diverse cultures, we wanted a majority POC
collection, we wanted a representation of trans folks across all of the beautiful spectrums,
we wanted the voices of disabled folks in there, working class people. So I think that
those were things we really were looking for. We also wanted international contributors.
So we just--we put it out there and waited to see what happened, basically.
Avren: And I noticed you have a few pieces in there, and I was wondering if--is it
possible for you to read anything from the anthology?
Amir: Oh yeah.
Avren: If you have it with you.
Amir: I have it...over there!
Avren: Okay.
Amir: I could go get it. (Ocean waves play as Amir retrieves anthology)
Amir: (begins to read poem)
Your Body Burns In Your Room
doctors make forceps with their fingers. they imitate the
smallest violin. your pain is not a note but a whine. you
have come to know how they cope when confronted with
the unknown. the oxycodone numbs 1/4 of your thumb,
but leaves you swimming in your bath. splashing,
convinced you are a rubber ducky. you laugh when you
are alone. your voice is a stranger and a friend.

Your Body Burns In Your Room

you salute the landscape from the square acre of bed
as for the peeled wallpaper: its a rolling wave,
a leaf curling, anything, but the fetal position,

its a bastion of ribbons in your hair,

its a smoke signal formed from a sciatic spark
rising to your ceiling, forming itself into
a genderless God. Its the miracle you cant undo,
the waking up even when you dont want to,
how you create from rock bottom, the dirt under
your nails, the half moons, the scars in the night sky

Avren: Do you feel like there's a healing component to writing poetry for you? A lot of
your poetry describes the illness that you have or the processes that you go through?
Amir: Mmm hmm.
Avren. And also many of your poems have an uplifting note to them as well. And I was
wondering if you could talk a little bit about your process and what you go through when
you're writing?
Amir: I think that for me the healing comes more when I share my work. It actually feels
pretty agonizing to write it because it is--it is really having to tap deep inside of me, into
really vulnerable places and to really painful places and to try and create something
beautiful out of that. And you know, that process is not easy, you know, sometimes to
create something beautiful you have to kind go through a lot emotionally. I mean, that
piece I just read, I wrote during a period where I was literally in bed for like a year and a
half. And I was just trying to hang on. And trying to create beauty even out of staring at
the wall and imagining it being something else, and creating--creating using my
imagination to help me get through these really difficult times. So yeah, for me I've found
that being a writer can be really isolating, a lot of it is created in isolation and being in
your head. Even though I'm connecting with spirits, I mean that's how I feel, connecting
with something outside of myself. But the healing really becomes, for me, with the
sharing, connecting with other people, with other people being like, "Oh this poem really
spoke to me." Sharing it, reading it aloud and having other people--feel their response. I
don't know if that makes sense.
Avren: I get what you're saying. (Amir laughs) It's a way of sort of gathering community
and gaining support from other people-Amir: Mmm hmm.

Avren: And in a way, I feel like this anthology goes that too. It centers QTPOC people
and it establishes, I guess--I don't know if establishes is the right word, but it does bring
together voices in a way that is healing or at least reaffirming.
Amir: Mmm hmm.
Avren: I saw online that there's talk about you putting together a full-length book of your
poetry?
Amir. Yes. (jumbled conversation) Are you talking about the fundraiser or are you talking
about-Avren: Oh, I saw the fundraiser for your residency too.
Amir: Yeah.
Avren: Could you talk just about that and about putting together this book of your poetry?
Amir: I've been working on another collection called The Disappeared for a really long
time. And then, I actually put it aside to finish Writing the Walls Down and also to
complete another collection where a bunch of the poems in the anthology are housed.
And I finished that actually, and I've been sending it out, but so far, you know--you know
how it is, it's a lot of no's. So I'm going back to this old collection called The
Disappeared. Which is actually a novel-in-poems.
Avren: A novel-in-poems in the sense that it focuses on a single speaker?
Amir: No. There's actually four different speakers. So it's a queer retelling of the story of
Jonah and the Whale. But it's in more of a contemporary setting. And it's a young queer
Lebanese girl whose family came to the states as refugees and she's bullied in school, and
she's really into alternative music, and into whales and also jazz music. Basically, she
gets swallowed by a whale and she's missing. So her family is freaking out. But the whale
has a voice, she has a voice, and then her parents have a voice. So it's all of them telling
their stories of their lives and about their relationship with her. It's not really a linear
story, it's kind of--they all speak and everything eventually comes together.
Avren: How did you come up with the whale voice?
Amir: Oh how did I come up with the whale voice?
Avren: Did you have any inspiration of how the whale would talk? I'm just super
interested in knowing that? (Avren laughs)
Amir: Well, I had this reoccurring dream for like many, many years of actually being
swallowed by the whale and the whale speaking to me. It came from somewhere--I don't
know what you would call that, dream world or--

Avren: Some sort of subconscious space?

Amir: Subconscious or spiritual realm or something, so--The whale is also a voice for
environmental justice because of all the underwater testing that the military does and it
wreaks havoc on marine life and then there's also the connection between this family and
how war has impacted this family, and traumatized them, so--just thinking about the
connections that are there, that's also weaved in. But yeah, the whale voice came to me in
a dream. I was also really obsessed with humpback whales when I was a kid and we did-in science class, we tracked their migration; when I was living in Hawaii. We went to go
see them at the water. We waited for two days for them to arrive. And then they came,
and it was this really magical experience. So all this to say, is that I need to tell this story,
if I keep having these dreams then something is speaking to me.
Avren: Sounds like it needs to get out, you know.
Amir: Yeah.
Avren: Somehow.
(Sounds of waves breaking play)
Avren: How do you feel living in San Diego now, do you feel--I assume you moved there
to stay with your partner, to find a new place and establish yourself there?
Amir: Yeah, my partner got into grad school. So that's why we moved here. It's been a
challenge to live here, I think. I was living in Oakland for almost ten years. So I had
really planted a lot of roots there, built a lot of community. And so, to go from that, to
barely knowing anyone here, was quite a challenge. I'm starting to meet more people now
and slowly connect with people. But it's definitely a new experience, you know? I knew a
lot more artists and stuff in the Bay and people knew more who I was and--it's a good
challenge.
Avren: Yeah, when I first found your work and heard about you, it was in the Troubling
the Line anthology.
Amir: Mmm hmm.
Avren: And I think in that anthology it said you were living in Oakland and I was like,
"Oh shit!" (laughs) I live--I'm living in Dublin right now, which is just outside Oakland.
Amir: Yeah.
Avren: And so, I was really excited. And then I found out you were living San Diego;
(Amir laughs) a little bit of a bummer. But I saw that you had also name checked
Blackberri and KinFolkz in the anthology, or sent them gratitude. The queer open mic at
Oakland has been a fantastic resource.

Amir: It's great. I really appreciate that space because it's a non-pretentious, noncompetitive space. And I think that that's really important for artists--for anyone, even if
you don't call yourself a writer or an artist, just to have those sort of spaces that you can
share or just listen--that's really about community and about being present and there for
each other.
(Sounds of waves breaking play)
Avren: Somewhere I read you were talking about how your poetryit is either an activist
poetry or it helps support your activism? I was wondering a little bit if you could talk
about the way that poetry helps support activism or vice-versa?
Amir: Yeah, that's a deep question. I mean, poetry has always been part of activist
movements and its always fed movements. So I think we need poetry like we need
foodit feeds our spirit, it nourishes us. And like physically, I can't go out as much in the
streets, and I can't work and organize in a way that I might have been able to before my
health became more of a challenge. And so, for me I consider poetryas either planting
the seed, depending on the poem. Or wateringwater for the plants; some sort of
nourishment for the different things I see going on in the world that I feel are unjust, and
I hope that it does. I hope that it feeds people and gives people some of that care and that
fuel or food that they need.
Avren: Is it possible that you could read another piece for us?
Amir: Sure. You can pick.
Avren: I can pick? Okay. I know that you've read this one quite a bit, speaking of
nourishment. I feel Our Dangerous Sweetness works well, in that regard.
Amir: Yes. This is one of the requested poem I get from people. (Avren laughs)
(Amir begins to read poem)
Our Dangerous Sweetness

When I hear the news,

another one of us has been killed
my heart constricts
I reach with a frantic grief
towards a soothing balm, difficult to find
And I cant help but think of
all the times my own life has been threatened
of all the people I love, and their own lives

I am tired of being afraid

to speak my name
to unbind my chest
to be feminine and masculine
to go outside
I am tired of being afraid
of being brown
I am tired of being afraid
of my own existence
of revealing my full self
for fear that if I do, I will be killed
Here: I am the living impossibility
like so many of the people I love
who have the audacity to embrace themselves
Each day,
I feel departed souls swirl surround me
I feel thousands of hands brushing away my tears
They say: do what you were born to do
To write these words down
To write myself into wholeness
To write myself away from vengeance
They say: listen and so I listen
For a long time, I listen
And then they say speak
to those that are still here
& so I speak,
to those of you still here
I speak to say:
My Dear Beautiful People,
Each time you are broken, I break, I
break,
I break a little more

then un-break,
I am piecing myself back together
with the care of a potters hands
I clay phoenix
I feel the heat
of our resurrections burning
to glaze our skin into glow
my fire and my kiln
are these words, this space
the intimate threads
of our connection
my prayer: we remember
ourselves as entwined in this struggle
my prayer: we undo the knots we have tied around ourselves
we breathe
we remember can be bound together
& free
I write because I feel the pulse of us
chanting the names of those who have died
Our own names
Our essences as holy
I envision us going on
to eclipse, building, bigger, bigger, bigger
more luminous
So bright
My beautiful people
our breaking is our making
& if I strip all my other identities away:
I am simply a poet who listens
To God,

To the dead,
To the living
To all left behind
To all the places in between
I am simply a poet
who writes these words because I believe in us
because I know a faith uncontainable by an alphabet
My beautiful people let us dream towards
what we want
beyond survival
Let us dream towards loving ourselves
till we become love over and over again
My beautiful people
I can taste our honeyed victory
My beautiful people
our dangerous sweetness
is our rebellion

Avren: I can't get tired of that poem. Every time I hear it or read it, it's so...poignant and
uplifting. There's a vulnerability and a sweetness and a power to it at the same time. I
think its power comes from its vulnerability, if that makes any sense.
Amir: Yeah, it does make sense. (Amir laughs)
Avren: This is a question that I've been asking myself quite a bit and I've been trying to
figure out as I learn more and more about the trans literary cannon. Is there something
that you feel as poets that we should be addressing as trans and genderqueer poets? Is
there a theme or a topic you feel like needs to be addressed or needs to be highlighted
more?
Amir: Hmm.
Avren: It's difficult like I-Amir: That's a hard question.

Avren: Yeah, it's one I've been trying to tackle for myself and trying to figure out what
my writing should be and what I should be--or if there even is a should. You know. If I
should even be thinking in terms of should. (Avren laughs)
Amir: Yeah, I mean I don't know if I have--something I would consider a should for
trans poets in particular, because I think that all of the ways the people are writing is
important. What I would say that I think is really important for any poet, who is writing
with the intention of social change, any poet coming from any marginalized community,
is to--to stay connected to the vulnerability, to stay connected to your truths, however
complicated they areand to watch the ego. Which is going to sound weird, but I just
think that if we're writing simply worried about an audience's reaction(now, I'm not
talking about not being mindful of language) but we're writing for the applause, for
instance. We're thinking, how is this going to go over? Will I get a lot of applause
or...Then sometimes, we're less vulnerable. Sometimes, we're staying more on the
surface. And, to just remember to stay connected to the vulnerability, even though it's
super hard, especially as trans people. Sometimes the last thing is being more vulnerable.
Are you seriously asking me to be more vulnerable than I already feel? (Amir laughs) But
I actually think, like you were saying that there's power in vulnerability. And I push pretty
hard to stay connected to that. And to you knowbe mindful of language and impact but
not always be thinking of things, writing for show. Unless, that's really what you're doing,
that's your thing.
Avren: That makes sense. Especially currently I think in poetry, there's more of a push to
be vulnerable and show your humanness, especially I think since we're coming from an
age that was incredibly ironic.
Amir: Yeah.
Avren: So the vulnerability, the humanness, is needed. I think that definitely true. Before
we go, is there any poets or any projects that you would like to signal boost?
Amir: Oh, signal boot. Signal boost. Oh my gosh! (Amir laughs) Oh, so the poet, writer
and cultural worker Aurora Levins Morales; a very important person in our community,
the queer community, is trying to create, basically a revolutionary home on wheels
because she has a lot of chronic health conditions and hasn't been able to have safe
housing. And right now is in danger of losing her housing and so if people could go
online, on GoFundMe; I believe it's on GoFundMe. Google Aurora Levins Morales, and
contribute to the campaign for her to have safe housing and to continue her amazing
cultural work, that would be awesome. It's really important that we support folks with
disabilities, especially the older folks in our community, who often get left out. So that
would be the one thing I would love to signal boost, and this month is crucial in the
fundraising, soeven if you can only kick five bucks. It would be awesome.
Avren: Okay, excellent. And I will definitely put that link in the show description as well,
so people can just click on it and go straight there and also, for your residency as well.

Amir: Thank you.

Avren: Of course. Thank you so much again for taking the time to talk with me for this. I
really appreciate it.
Amir: It's been my pleasure. Thank you for reaching out.
(Outro. Jazz music plays)
Avren: You can support Aurora Levins Morales' Vehicle for Change at
littlevehicleforchange.org. Scroll all the way down and click donate. Amir Rabiyah is
trying to raise funds for their Hambidge Residency at
gofundme.com/amirgoestohambidge. That's gofundme.com/amir, a-m-i-r goes to
Hambidge, h-a-m-b-i-d-g-e. Thanks for listening and if you have any questions or
comments about the show, or any editing tips, or you or someone you know would like to
be on the show, please drop me a line at wavesbreakingshow@gmail.com.
(End)