Ibtisam Barakat

Ibtisam Barakat Poems

I write
for my heart
has become
a country
...

A stone mosque
stands like a pencil
taller than
...

At the checkout register,
at an office-supplies store,
I am getting ready to
...

When I was a girl in a poor family
we hung our clothes to dry on the povertyline,
and with it I jumped rope.
...

Our city is a cell
Children's faces
Are replacing
...

Ibtisam Barakat Biography

Ibtisam Barakat is a Palestinian-American writer, poet, and educator. She was born in Beit Hanina, near Jerusalem. Barakat received her Bachelor's degree from Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah in the West Bank. In 1986, she moved to New York City, where she interned with The Nation magazine. She went on to earn a Masters degree in Journalism and Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Missouri. Her childhood memoir, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood, about growing up under Israeli occupation following the 1967 Six-Day War, was published in 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and won numerous awards and honors, including the International Reading Association's Best Non Fiction for YA, 2008; the Middle East Council Best Literature Book Award, 2007,; and the 2008 Arab American Book Award in the Children/ Young Adult Category.)

The Best Poem Of Ibtisam Barakat

Tea Invitation

I write
for my heart
has become
a country
and I want
all people
to live in it.

I make space
by emptying
all corners
of fear.

I make peace
by making
a cup of tea
for my story
and yours.

A cup of tea
for our estranged
histories
that come from
one family
but to one another
do not speak.

Hot tea and mint.
I have meant
to invite you over
to my heart.

Do you like your tea
with sugar?

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