Trish Salah

"Wanting in Arabic" is a refusal of convenient silences, convenient stories. Concerned with not covering the tracks of her own metamorphosis, the author dwells in the contradictions of a transsexual poetics, in this attendand disfigurations of lyric, ghazal, l'ecriture feininine, and, in particular, her own sexed voice. Without a memory of her father's language, the questions her poems ask are those for a home known through photographs, for a language lost with childhood. Braiding theoretical concerns with the ambivalences of sexed and raced identity, with profound romanticism, "Wanting in Arabic" attempts to travers the fantasies of foundational loss and aggressive nostalgia in order to further a poetics of a consious partiality of being, of generous struggle and comic rather than tragic misrecongition.

Poems

Wanting in Arabic

Largely written before the current cultural visibility of trans lit, Lyric Sexology Vol. 1 is Salah's prescient contribution to a canon of self-determined literature that explores transness. In this case, the author sidesteps the "I" in the text and instead draws on archives--sexological, anthropological, psychological, among others--to demonstrate the shifting and shifty nature of our identities, affiliations, and narratives. This 2017 edition is the first to be published in Canada and features four new poems and a new cover design by Kai Yun Ching and Wai-Yant Li.

Lyric Sexology

David J. Getsy

Julian B. Carter

Trans*cultural Production

Poetry. Women's Studies. LGBT Studies. Middle Eastern Studies. Introduction by Lisa Robertson. WANTING IN ARABIC is a refusal of convenient silences, convenient stories. The author dwells on the contradictions of a transsexual poetics, in its attendant disfigurations of lyric, ghazal, l'ecriture feminine, and, in particular, her own sexed voice. Without a memory of her father's language, the questions her poems ask are those for a home known through photographs, for a language lost with childhood. Braiding theoretical concerns with the ambivalences of sexed and raced identity, with profound romanticism, WANTING IN ARABIC attempts to traverse the fantasies of foundational loss and aggressive nostalgia in order to further a poetics of a conscious partiality of being, of generous struggle and comic rather than tragic misrecognition.

Trish Salah

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