"WHO IS AN ARAB?" ASKS
    PALESTINIAN-AMERICAN POET"

     Having Palestinian parents and being raised in Paris, Boston, the West Indies and Latin America can make ethnicity a complex question, explains poet Nathalie Handal. "I feel I'm a Bostonian Parisian" she said noting that she has most recently lived in London and now makes New York City her home. She spoke Jan. 29 during a coffee reception sponsored by the “Arabic Hour" television program in Boston.
     Handal explained that Arabs often consider her an American since she writes in English and does not speak fluent Arabic. On the other hand, Americans, when they realize her background consider her an Arab. She said that in reality, an Arab is anyone of Arab descent who chooses that label.
     However, she also noted that with her light skin and fair hair, she does not fit a stereotype. "'People have an idea of how Arabs look," she said.
     Handal also lamented the confusion many Americans display about the rest of the world. When she tells people her family came from Bethlehem., she said they may  respond , “’Bethlehem,. Pennsylvania?' I'd say, 'Palestine,' and they’d say, 'Oh, Pakistan.' It's amazing."
     The coffee followed the taping of an interview of Handal by leading Boston-Palestinian poet Lisa Majaj, which will be shown on the "Arabic Hour.” A former researcher and. lecturer at the University of London., Handal discussed her latest book, The Neverrfield Poem, a 57 -page epic written in English. The work draws heavily upon her own nomadic life and the Palestinian diaspora.
     "It has a resonance of an epic poem," the author explained. "It’s a journey through epic lands.  There’s a lot of Palestinian thematics there.”
     Asked about the yellow dominating the book cover" Handal said. "' My life has been a lot about yellow, from the Boston yellow cabs to the yellow cornfields of lowa.”
    

    

     One part of her poem reads,
the reflection

of yellow clouds settled inside of me like Bedouins who had found their.

    evening spot ....

1 peeled the thoughts from my mind and moved to Alexandria

where I saw the praying jlutes

and found the unknown thought a Sufi...

     Handal’s  physical and spiritual journey is also portrayed in “Traveling Rooms," a CD-ROM featuring her poetry set to music.
She explained that each of the poems represents one of the places she has lived or visited, or an area of interest to her. Musicians improvised, creating music appropriate to each piece. For instance, a poem about America has the syncopated sounds of jazz in the background, while a reference to Greece has Greek music in the background.
     A number of the works have themes drawing upon Eastern Orthodox motifs, which are part of her mixed religious heritage. In London, Handal was chair of thePushkin Club, which celebrates the work of  Russian writer Aleksandr Pushkin.
     Praising Majaj for blazing the trail for Palestinian-American women poets, Handal said “I'm following in her footsteps."
    Others in the room empathized with Handal's cross-cultural odyssey. Boston teacher and writer Evelyn Shakir had recently returned from a semester teaching American literature at the Lebanese University of Beirut as the first Fulbright Scholar in some 20 years to that nation.
She said that her students were divIded on whether to accept her as an Arab, but that after one girl challenged her, the others sprang  to her defence. 'They said, “Look at her Middle Eastern-style bracelets" and that was the clincher," Shakir said to laughter.