Sleeping with the Window Open

Notes

“I know too much has been made of origins” is Dionne Brand’s “Too much has been made of origins” in A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging (Canada: Vintage Books, 2002).

When writing “as though the gases the solids / began or ended in you” I was thinking of Roque Dalton’s poem “Como Tú / Like You” (trans. Jack Hirschman).

“but you needn’t kill the maggots to save the festering dog” is a response to Maitreyabandhu’s poem “Asaṅga” in Yarn (UK: Bloodaxe, 2015).

I was often thinking of “Tai: A Yom Kippur Sermon” by Aurora Levins Morales (web, 2017) while writing this poem, particularly towards the end. The final line is Morales’s: “there is nothing to defend.”

Cover image: Pauline van Mourik Broekman; untitled; 1991; collage; 35.5cm x 27.5cm

Mira Mattar

Mira Mattar writes fiction and poetry. She is an independent researcher, editor, and tutor. She is a Palestinian and Jordanian from London, where she lives and works. Her novel, Yes, I Am A Destroyer was published in 2020 by Ma Bibliothèque, and her chapbook, Affiliation, was recently published by Sad Press. Her first collection, which includes "Sleeping with the Window Open," will be published by The 87 Press this year.