April 3

Read about Abu Akleh here

She was well-known for covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the forefront, while giving a voice to the Palestinian people who would have otherwise been overlooked by other news outlets. Her brave coverage included the 2000 Intifada, the Israeli attacks at Al Aqsa compound, the Jenin raids, and the airstrikes by the Israel Air Force (IAF) in the Gaza Strip. In 2005, she became the first Arab journalist to hold interviews with Palestinian prisoners at Shikmah Prison in Ashkelon, Israel.

Read more about Azita Ghahreman here

The Boat that Brought Me

Behind these eyes that look like mine
old names are fading away, the past lies crumpled in my clenched fist -
a coppery bird in coppery wind,
this vast place has covered me from head to toe.

I am not stripped of word and thought
but sometimes what I want to say gets lost
like a moon smudged with cloud, or when I splutter on a drink.
My tongue trips up when I speak of that journey
though the blood in my veins felt the truth of death.
As I traced my footsteps through the tracery of my old language
Summer whispered to me
and my frozen fingers began to put out shoots
even as I began to love the cold ebb and flow of tides.

Sometimes I miss
the boat that brought me here,
now that I am witness to the icy eyes of a Swedish winter,
under these tired old clouds,
while that suitcase still holds a patch of the sky-blue me.

Read this poem and others at poemhunter.com

The Goodreads page for Unni Lindell

Read a short summary of Irving's importance in American literature here