April 8, 2026

Week Two: Translinguistics

by Layla Faraj

Moving from the visual into the linguistic, for the second week of National Poetry Month Mizna is highlighting grammatical, poetic, and oral storytelling structures as they move/are moved between languages. The poems featured this week all speak to this experimentation differently, beginning with an original poetic form utilizing the Arabic short vowel—the kesra—and moving to English interpretations of the ghazal and zaffah.

The accompanied original prompts, meant to span the second week of National Poetry Month, are a way for readers to continue this conversation on translinguistics with their own work.

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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the kesra poem

by Banah El Ghadbanah

Originally published in Mizna 24.2, Cinema Issue, 2024

the kesra¹ poem

من، إلى، عن، ب، ل، على

from,        to,         concerning,         with,       to,          on top of

من السماءِ

from the sky

from the sky, a droplet of rain migrates 
between my shoulder blades & down to my ankles.
i look down; there is a kesra, slanting beneath me, 
a turning downward into earth. my body, under yours, 
a musical sheet with notations we composed. 
forgotten sounds under the pillow; there’s so much 
left under my throat i still have to say. 

إلى المدرسةِ

to the school

on the way to school, in the rain, in the mornings, 
in the evening: your car waiting for me outside the dormitory. 
i couldn’t escape if i wanted to. it was too comfortable 
slipping back into your arms; a familiar molasses.

عن الحبِ

concerning love

my friend’s sister’s body was found 
after the earthquake in antakya. her arms 
were wrapped around her son. some forms of love 
survive apocalypse.
ours was not this kind. 

بصعوبةٍ

with difficulty

hardship, with struggle, 
should there not be ease? 
should there not be “i’m so 
sorry i hurt you that way?”
after a point—why 
is the poem left unfinished? 

لذكرياتٍ

to the memories

i plant you under
the violets and sage,
i have no use for you 
anymore; i speak only
the language of love
& distance & soil

على الأرضِ

on this earth

we are given bodies;
it is our choice what 
to do with them. your 
vessel has been unkind
& mine was a fool
every time. still, i wash my 
face before sunrise wet with
raindrops & pray for 
new circumstances.
one day i will start writing
poems & remember your hostility;
it will be a sweet gift i plant beneath
my feet, my hands on the ground,
kissing the spot that 
was once so tender

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Ghazal: Storyboard

by Emily Ahmed

Originally published in Mizna 24.2, Cinema Issue, 2024

somewhere, a painter and a poet of a thousand and one stories —
their divorce broke like a wave, became a news story.
after, a sick girl — though now a woman — fled to one woundful home. six months into recovery,
a friend sneaks her number to the waiter, the daughter of a painter and poet in no love story.
two years before recovery, a wildness in the air: jackets worn, shoes a father
will insist on polishing, friends holding gloved hands, this a girl’s adventure story.
two years into recovery the landlady says, it’s just across the noodle place,
you’ll know where it is. there, sick girl meets her on the second story.
said the sick girl to lover: do not break my mosaic will to leave. though rosy-cheeked,
it’s unhealthy. here is just so i can look back and say, oh yes, a small part of my story.
somewhere, the landscape is black, universe full of stars. some make out constellations of the Nile,
or are they the lights of Los Angeles? in any case there’s a poet and a painter, this is an immigrant story.
the landlady says, it’s my tiniest studio. when sick girl moves in the window shakes
from the street’s music, it seems to say, My hope, this is your story.

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Epithalamium: a Zaffah

by Dina Omar

Originally published in Mizna 13.1, Literature in Revolution, 2012

Kullou la umma tifrah wa tet’henna
Roosh il wasa’id bil ‘uttur wa’il henna²
Meely meely³

A hundred years ago
Young women becoming brides Would walk on a path paved with Tongues of women’s gossip
On trails of green and red vines Squishing grapes between toes

The sound of my village Ramoun Is my brother’s wedding
My sister’s henna
My cousin’s engagement and

There is something about
A crowd of crooning Ramamnah Singing to sway apple trees Beckoning the attention of olives

Meely meely
Il ah shajarat il toofah⁴

Where I come from
Family members have the burden
Find a good man from a good family
A good woman from the same neighborhood Love to village folks
Is as simple as an exchange of glances
Cups of tea and salat il’istekhair

No need for dating and heartache
Aunties and grandmas do all the
Weeding out for you

There is magic
In preparing a bride
I go through this with cousins and sisters
With distant relatives and good friends

We explore our obsession with waxing
Contemplate underwear and lingerie
And find new ways to fit into dresses
After trying on hundreds

There is a song for family traveling in from everywhere
Falesteen, Texas, Dearborn, New Jersey, New York, Canada,
Uncles forced to celebrate after
Years of not speaking for forgotten reasons

Anticipate the gathering of gold
The preparing of the henna
The spraying of pillows with perfume
The singing randomly in halls kitchens bathrooms and
The misplaced feet that practice debka

Meely meely
Il ah shajarat il zaytoon⁵

There is a grace about designing
A thobe, choosing the color of thread embroider
A path the thread takes over your body
About the women in your family dressing you
Getting your hair done with 15–20 of your closest female relatives
It is about the young women in your family
sleeping next to each other on one bed
Just to sense the nearness of each other’s familiar skin
Because we know once one of us gets married it will never be the same

There is an aroma about grandma’s mixing henna
With perfect portions of dark tea, black coffee, and leymon
There is something about them waking early in the morning to
Knead the henna to the perfect mud consistency
Scoop into platters, plastic chalices from Wal-Mart, and Styrofoam cups Decorating them with organza and bright ribbon
There is something about the zaffah

Meely meely,
Il ah shajarat il sar’ees⁶

Dressing the ‘aroos in her thobe and her slitcha
That never stays on the head right
It’s about the older women singing out in the air and
We the younger women repeating the same like
Echo their voice the cadence of their clapping
Soars above a tablah
Hands and palms swollen red
Cuz we been making music
By colliding skin for centuries
For sahrahs and the hennas

It is the loud base and the reverberation of sitto’s zaghareet
The bodies bursting Shifting in motion
The palms resounding in unison

The thuds
The clapping
The clapping
The clapping in harmony

Above the violin the tablah the flute
Above the songs and sweaty bodies elegantly dressed
Women step out of their designer shoes
Place them beside the stage and
Dance some more

Letting go

Of their own inhibitions
Of all the pent-up joy in our community
Because we are too busy burying the dead
Too busy dealing with checkpoints and pain that
We forget to
Celebrate our selves
Stomping and kicking and thudding in perfect chaos
The Palestinian flag waving above
The pit of people who yell yallah yallah
During debka il’ shabab wa’a nesat
Stomping pulsating in the space
Where decendants of men
Who cultivated land, tilled crops, and founded villages
Intersect with the lifeline and destiny of women
Who squished grapes between toes

These women remold wedding hymns into fighting songs

Kulloulhum nirja ‘ala bladna
Nidhan il’ hyoot fee ‘arak wa’ demna⁷

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1. In Arabic grammar, words following prepositions must be notated with the kesra, a downward, slanting vowel underneath the last letter of the word, similar to the letter “e.” But it is not a full letter—it is a notation, a little scribble, like in music—telling the reader to stop, slow down, and change the pronunciation. Learners of Modern Standard Arabic must distinguish which words require notating the words that follow with a kesra; which require a fat’ha (“a”)—Inna and her siblings, or Inna wa ikhwataha: إنّ (that), لكنّ (but), لأن (because), كأن (as if), لعلّ (perhaps); and which require a dumma (“o”)—Kan wa ikhwataha, or Kan and her siblings, كان (to be), ليس (to not be), ظل (to remain), ما زال (to continue to be), and  أصبح (to become). Colloquial diasporic Arabic speakers like me tend to forget the rules because we drop the complicated grammar in our spoken slang. Sometimes it helps to memorize certain phrases, such as these that I have taken from a grammar book and used as the blueprint for this poem. 
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2. Lyrics sung during Palestinian weddings. “Tell the mother of the bridegroom to celebrate and be joyous / to sprinkle the pillows with perfume and henna.” ↩︎
3. Swaying of trees. ↩︎
4. Sway, apple trees.
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5. Sway, olive tree.
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6. Sway, green almond tree. ↩︎
7. “Tell them that we will return home / we’ll paint the walls with our sweat and our blood.” ↩︎

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Prompts for Week One: April 8-15, 2026

1. Write your own kesra poem using the phrases provided by Banah el Ghadbanah’s note about grammar.
2. Choose your own prepositional phrases in any language and write poems using each of them. 
3. Write your own ghazal.
4. Write your own storyboard using a story from your mother tongue.
5. Break English by bringing a poetic form from another language into it. Examples include the Malay pantoum or the Japanese haiku.
6. Zaffahs offer a close look into indigenous relationships to land, often referring to specific flora and fauna. Write a jubilant poem that also celebrates the indigenous.
7. Zaffahs often include ridiculous and entertaining lines for the sake of persevering the rhyme scheme. Write a poem that does the same.

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