We Are Malala

Katerina Vaughan Fretwell

• Publisher: Inanna Poetry and Fiction Series
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781771335867
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Women in Poetry
• Index: Literature

p> We Are Malala is an imagined dialogue between Nobel Peace winner Malala Yousafzai and the poet about historical, cultural and spiritual themes. Malala's autobiography, I Am Malala, inspired this collection. Judaism, Islam and Christianity are in increasingly and dangerously hot conflict. This volume of poetry, also inspired by Karen Armstrong and Sally Armstrong, two unrelated conciliators/activists, attempts to bridge the gap between those religions through dialogue and respect for other belief systems. This collection also includes artwork by the poet.

Star Blessed and Crossed

So woe to ... those who are all show

and forbid kindnesses.

—Qur’an 107: 5-7

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

thoughts that often lie too deep for tears.

—William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality

I point to petals everywhere,

powdering, perfuming air.

Your town Gulkada: site of blooms.

Dear Malala, in awe, I’m drawn

like bee to nectar, your life

grace spirit — cereus abloom

once every century.

Star blessed, star crossed, named

Malala, for Malalai of Maiwand,

Afghan’s Joan of Arc, your koan.

Malalai means grief-stricken,

thorny roses, Venus Fly-Trap, a mine

fielded by warring factions, let’s bridge

our two solitudes. Breathe, dear one,

breathe even the dirt path to the Swat,

smell of dead fish, so far from

your homeland now, maybe never safe

for you. Pomegranates, peaches,

guavas, grapes, home sensed.

As dawn’s final star faded, you arrived,

feted, despite being female in a family

reliant on oil lamps, outhouse, mud-walls.

Your lucky birth, July 12, 1997,

caring Cancer, bold Ox, propelled the ascension

to three rooms over your dad’s school.

Running water, concrete walls. Kindnesses

papered your homestead like floral wallpaper.

As kids, we both reviewed daily news,

your fervent free-falling views,

unlike my era’s youth — seen, not heard,

speak only when spok...