April 1, 2026

Week One: Lexicality & Visuality

by Layla Faraj

This week, Mizna begins our column on language and form with an experimentation of the visual, the borrowed, and the seemingly misunderstood. The three poems featured here all offer an interpretation of a form invented by Marwa Helal entitled The Arabic, which is intended to be read right to left. Both visually and in content, these poems explore words that are stuck, that betray, and that feel incomplete.

The accompanied prompts, meant to span the first week of National Poetry Month, encourage visual and lexical play with the shape and meaning of the writer’s language(s).

Read more about Mizna’s Poetry Month Prompts and find all of the prompts here.

—Layla Faraj, NNAAC Fellow + Column Editor

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shadow throat

by Andrea Abi-Karam

Originally published in Mizna 22.1, 2021

a me sends she
as her with selfie
shadow object indirect the
still she’s if ask i
these in manhattan in
resplendent times end
shudder buildings glass empty
sunlight direct the in
yup replies she
a buying of thinking
with struggle i gun
want i say to what
something say to
fearless & hot
always they’re but
say i so watching
temperate something
a share mild &
of shred
had i convo another
sure make recently
unattach to
gaze my reorient name
of instead observer
write i when accomplice
about talking someone heard i
try — those printing 3D
in phones generalize to
u have freezer the
iphone new those seen
wish u when billboards
york new enter to
tunnel lincoln the proximate
looming user the camera 3 the point +
u @ directly cluster
balanced frame the
privacy. text the by
that below iphone. that’s
render paint ms an
twin the of
flag Am + towers
throat the enter u
thoroughfare the of
funded CIA feel
late in chills
this of all september
the say to is
hot was selfie
too was i +
the of afraid
م .state

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name/s

by Andrea Abi-Karam

Originally published in Mizna 20.1, Twenty Years, 2019

اسم/س are impossible
like bodies are so +
one having ugh what
supposed i am fuck the
day it with do to
wake i day after
try + it into up
way the all it fill to
know i like energy my up
many so for here i
wake i names but things
it into up
half on it put +
wanting lineage half / cocked
sharp — peak each — letterform the
expansive — wideness overall its fierce +
all-caps — go/od so looks it
it way the love i powerful fucking
name + bars search internet glitches
in glitches it f(x) like fields
obvious it’s + way race a
does hacking + stealth not —
no but way gender a in glitch
ledger the that tracks one 1
generous of son connotes name my of part
god name my of part casual the +
drag perpetual in

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Some days honey, some days onion

by Danielle Badra

Originally published in Mizna 21.1, Queer + Trans Voices, 2020

staggering is grief my days some
song wild some was who sister my
and silence dead some her after
out held notes piano like sound almost echoes some
laughter cavernous her of echoes
whole was once heart my where ribs my across ring
before was I who of half am I
plural the not ة singular the
alone while even dances still 1
hips my move can I music without even
living for rhythm balanced a find can I
death from away move I house haunted a in
altars across scattered artifacts her
Rome from candles artisan unlit
days some dust gather
يوم عسل، يوم بصل م

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Prompts for Week One: April 1—7, 2026

1. 1. Write your own The Arabic, a form invented by Marwa Helal that reads from right to left.
2. 2. Match the first and last line of your poem.
3. 3. Write a poem about two foods that are not normally associated with one another, i.e., honey and onion. 
4. 4. Write a poem that forces the reader to wonder how the poem is read.
5. 5. Write a poem that alienates the reader from English as a language, in any sense of the word.
6. 6. Write a poem that doesn’t care if it’s understood by anyone other than you.
7. 7. Using language as your entry point, write into the space between your dominant language and what should have been your first language.

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