Alsamsam, Dana

Overview "The poetry manuscript "Around This Impossible Black" unravels what it means to be a queer, Syrian-American woman in America. Through the incorporation of Arabic language, Syrian heritage, and Islamic tradition, the poet navigates her identity as a borderland, ruminating on the loss of the inherited mother tongue and land while not being fully comfortable in America. This conflict is punctuated not only by the war in Syria and widespread Islamophobic terrorism, but also by the breakage of...