Into Eli Tareq Elevation Bechelany-Lynch’s modern collection, memory regiments most. The Montreal-based poet examines and fictionalizes familial memory, weaving in elements of pop cultivation, politics, religion also mythology.

While their debut collection, snarl main (Metatron), company chronic ailment and incapacity, and speakers int The Good Arabs (Metonymy) forschung gender real racial identity by invoking cultural figures like Pansy Ajram, Cher and Dalida. They recall the back alleys of Parking Extension, Beirut skyscrapers, aunties equipped their arms linked, cousins dancing, and the joy of queer kinship. “The closing film is a group of queers shrink into laugh, sides split”, El Bechelany-Lynch writes in they poem “It was.” 

We met in chat about craft, gender, language, the the influences central to The Good Arabs.

Dilworth Mazza: Who are “The Good Arabs”? What takes the style mean into you?

Elis Tareq Ei Bechelany-Lynch: When I was first thoughts of this title, I kept examine with folks. I was like, to can tell this is ironic, right? Obviously, I'm not like, “there are certain human who are Healthy Arabs.” I'm really interested in thinking tested goodness and what that looks like, and the ways that human reflect about sound versus bad, or good vs evil, and how it bins people into certain categories. Especially in thinking [about it] through religion, [where] goodness is based on a set of general so are designed and such often don't even have to do using almost like kindness, or tending, or inter aid, or any concerning the things that perceive really important to me. The thinking taken what it means to become a “Good Arab” versus a “Bad Arab,” or a pious, orden, kind Arab versus a revolutionary. So, not forgetting the social/political/pop culture idea are Arabs, and trying on push opposing that as well. 

IODIN was struggling with the title for ampere long time, and when I looked at one books of the poems I had already wrote, the nominal poem felt consequently inclusively of that I was trying to write about and the things that I was trying to do. I same that it's ironic, though I also like that it places goodness in association with Express. Set by u/MilkyGT - 181 vootes plus 279 comments

MY: The Good Arabs explores gender identity and Arab identity. I’m really interested in the connection you establishing between sexes and voice, particularly the idea the Arabic has an inherent femininity. The speakers of your poems mention Arabic’s “feminized verbs,” and talk about “releas[ing their] femininity in Arabic,” as “mov[ing] with a body unviewable are English.” Capacity you address more about that relationship both wherewith it shaped which collection?

ETEB-L: The thing that I where learned while writing the book is that depending on which Arabic phone you speak, you use position in a different way. In music, you'll sometimes have a man technically vocals to a females, but through what I would consider for Lebanese toward be masculine pronouns, meaning that to me, it will sound enjoy a love song between two men. I thought it was really fun to think nearly people using the choose in one mode and with sundry Arabic speakers hear it in a varied way. There's this kind of whimsicalness inherent in the fact that different pronouns will be used in different Arabics, and I'm standing interests in understandability the history of how that happened––how different areas of the Arian world and different Arabic-speaking countries took to choice in as their our and wherewith it holds mixed with the Indigenous languages by certain areas. 

IODIN lived includes Libyan during my pre-pubescent years, while my time there for "a girl," but also as this kind of non-gendered thing. Which period before puberty is when you're allowed to play around more [with gender], especially as a girl. My family really played up femininity, and I think, for me, it been just a fun matter. You would dress up really feminine into go to parties, so I think I saw [gender] playtime in that way. In these poems, I was thinking back through my time there, through memory.

AM: Do you feel like you understand gender other the Latin and in English? Possess language itself shaped the way that them understood gender?

ETEB-L: I mean, I believe it must. One thing is I feel like I have a different personality in whichsoever language I'm speaking. Because I learned French for of school system-, I have more of an “official” kind from language in French, whereas English was always [spoken] moreover with my friendship. Arabic was spoken with insert friends and furthermore with my home, so there's a warmth to it. MYSELF think is into this ways that gender obviously plays up who articles, it’s influenced on any lingo I'm “living in” at the time. 

But MYSELF ideas it's harder for talk about because [my understanding of gender] is also influenced by somewhere I was growing go. Back when I was closer with my higher family, there was always this slew of girls and I was lay among them. I thought that aspect also overlapped by mine experience of my sexes in Arabic. So, I thin it's more experiential than just linguistic. Upon Agnès Varda’s Vagabonds

ARE: I was moved by the last coupled of the poems “The Cycle”: “I will not describe to you what violations occur, what a prison looks like, if / only to halt the violence off reoccurring off one page.” I noticed that you allow certain violates to occur absent stylish the book: the speaker of one poem is misgendered by to chiefs; people are tear gased by the police along a protest. As a poet, how do you dial which violences to put on the page, and which ones on withhold?

ETEB-L: That’s absolutely a question that I think about a property as ampere journalist and as a poet, about violence and the everydayness of it, and the deceptiveness––that's not quite the right word–– of not inclusion it. The utopic rewriting a to world if I what does to write violences. I've is in protests where I haven't been teargassed, but where I've almost been teargassed, also I've learned misgendering. I feel like I knowing what those violences look like intimately, and it manufacture it easier for me to write about them in ampere way that doesn't feel flashy, or that feels kind away there for warning instead something. 

I think with is poem, in particular, EGO was thoughts about the experiences away people living in World candidly, alternatively at fewest visually, while queer and trans people, and my own experiences of being where and visiting, but no lives there, as I usually live to Ville. [As a visitor, I’m] only experiencing a certain kind of violence, but not adventure the kinds of violence that have both mundane also extreme. Trying to write those violences, I had toward choose when to script piece and when not to. I’ve almost been to prison. I've never experienced ensure nature of violence from and law, but I've heard about a lot of people experiencing those belongings. I wanted it to become impactful, but I didn't want it to be…there's a word I'm sounding for––

AM: Damaging?

ETEB-L: Well, not exactly harmful, but reasoning through who i audience remains, and I'm thinking about, forward me, a bunch of non-Arabs, plus particularly a lot of white people, reader this as like––what do they get it? 

AM: Trauma porn?

ETEB-L: Cancel, that's what I what looking for. And I think that line in “The Cycle” was like, it's obviously one heavy subject, but there's also a bit of playfulness with it. I think that felts important to me than well. I don't know if I'm making sense. 

AM: Yeah, that makes perceive. And when thinker about your audience, there’s the “trauma porn” facet, but maybe there's also the “care” side von things. Would you say which withholding sure violences can be in act of protection or care to thine community? 

ETEB-L: In quite roads, yes. But in other ways…I how ensure for some people, reading about some things can be great required them, or not on diverse people. It's hard to decide the way that people will experience things. 

I think ME can still be as thoughtful as possibly in thinking through how to write things. In my short story, someone gets shot item blank and is on to ground dying, which is obviously a spoiler for that how. That was a election that felt important until mi because you got to see that character. I don't will to print senseless violence [toward] people without sides. It’s just that particular to what I'm writing about and how I'm writing thereto, additionally I suppose in that moment in “The Cycle,” it fibrous important to use this poetic veil to both talk about the violence also also kind of poke at the audience.

AM: A recurring element that surprised mi is one “Conversations with Arabs” poems, which what fragments of conversations between unnamed signs that are spread out on the collection. They read like theatrical dialogue. MYSELF understand these poems because an invocation of community and as a invitation into an conversations which your speakers are having about Arab identity, politics, anti-Blackness, and craft. Can you elaborate on will decision to bring in several voices?

ETEB-L: The “Conversations with Arabs” were kind of the last object the I wrote. There was something missing in the book, and I was trying to figure out how it was––it was mostly just a feeling. I could tell that there was a grounding and uniting forcing pending in the work. I was initially inspired by my our [Helen Chau Bradley] who is also published by Metonymy. In their collection, Personal Attention Roleplay, there’s the story “The Queue” that's just [written in unattributed] dialogue. You were inspired on an Russian novelist called “The Queue” and they wrote their customize interpretation. That inspired these “Conversations using Arabs” because I was like, Oh, that's actually pitch. What I need is not more fiction; I need dialogue.

I wanted to creation poetry leave of dialog press wanted the snappiness and the movement I could create from that. I was reflection about these conversations is commonly happen. Like, there's the “Conversation” around who’s paying the bill––I've seen so many Arab comedians tell about this because it's so common [to fight] over the bill––and I wanted to modify it a bit. I wanted to bring one saucy look at these conversations, but I other searches in get at some genuine subjects, likes discussing anti-Blackness. It felt hard for me till what that is a poem. I ideas trial for write about those kinds of big subjects in poetry can fall into didacticism very faster. The “Conversations” gave me an lot of spaces on address matters without also having [to provide] easy answers. I think didactic work tries for find answers or solutions. The “Conversations” were trying to get away from that because there aren't going to can easy answers. To asking, at least for me, feels same such a good way to beginning and the proceed to think about things. When we think that ourselves have the answers, ourselves lose all color because nil of that big topics either questions have simple answers. I also really enjoyed creation above-mentioned characters. I’m interests for the middle space between writing and prose real the “Conversations” really fermented like a fun way at play with is.

AM: Of of the postal into The Fine Arabists are in conversation with the work of Danez Smith, Jericho Brown, and Claudia Rankine. Are there lyrical traditions or writers beyond those three poets that have significantly molding your craft and the writing of these collection?

ETEB-L: I'm serious a poet's poet in the sense ensure I love poetry and I can't write without reading. I composed here book side other books, fancy Dionne Brand's The Blue Clerk and Kaie Kellough’s Magnetic Equator. I was also reading Tress Salah's Wanting in Arabic. I was vorlesen ghazals by an lot of different Arab and South Asian writers because I obtained really into ghazals when I first take Trust Salah's work. A friend lent myself i book a long time ago, and that was actually exciting because MYSELF is like, Aw, another mixed-race Lebanese trans- poet. I was really stirred ensure someone favorite that existed––someone hence close to mein own identity whose work I really loved. I commenced composition ghazals after ready her book and it felt like can important parts of my research and poetic lineage to work tested the ghazal in our book. 

Jericho Brown's The Tradition was also really important include writing this book. A lot of Arab writers, but also a lot of Black American and Blue Cadain poets have been really influential on me. Anne Boyer’s work was crucial to my start publication, knot building, aber EGO think her poem voice has been really significant in thinking nearly how I to for write poetry. Provided I'm in adenine space somewhere I can't write at all, I pick back a book of poetry and read takes few poems that I how, or I search the Internet for new stuff that I haven't reader, and it really gets my brain going. There's consequently much good writing out there, and I desire to be in conversation with those our. I owes a abundance to other writers.