Zietlow: Why poetry? Out of all the art forms what draws you to this medium?

Kassir: I didn't know that spoken word poetry was a form of creative expression until I was thirteen years old. In 2009, when I was thirteen years old, I had just participated in a street protest, [and it was] the first time I was ever on television. My face was painted on everything and the numbers on television that night were completely misconstrued. So, I wrote my first poem called “leaders of the world.”

I didn't know it was a slam poem. But my dream was to share it in a speech to the United Nations. I memorized this piece every single day for two years. I don't know when I would have the opportunity to use it or where it fit in the grand scheme of things. Then sophomore year of high school, there was a “poetry slam” at school. When I googled “slam poetry,” I thought “Woah, this is it! This is what I wrote.”

Being an angsty teenager writing about what pissed her off, I found ways to make these profound statements about my world by using the images in it. I fell in love with the medium before I knew what it was.

But I think in the last year I have become a “poet” in the fullest sense of the word.

Zietlow: Could you articulate that transition? What exactly does that mean for you?

Kassir: This was a tough year. I call it “the meltdown” for a number of reasons. I had been working on a book since performing for TED talks and traveling to five countries, which looked impressive. But something happened to me, and there was this collision between my immediate success and insecurities, and in that absolute panic I ran away to the mountains in Colorado. I pulled up along the side of the mountain and felt that I was at my lowest point. I had no faith in myself, my writing, or my academics. I had a 4.0 at the time but I didn't go to a single exam.

And then for some reason, I turned on my phone and started filming the landscape from the top of Lookout Mountain, near Denver, Colorado, and articulated what I saw. And it became this potent beautiful language, which made me appreciate that creativity is my capacity to intersect everything I've ever learned and it was there that I spiritually became a writer because that's when I realized that there was no element of creating, I was merely harnessing what was already there.

When I started my book again, I became a poet because I realized that I didn't have to create anything profound or deep on my own. The meaning and wisdom comes at the very core of things, the grassroots, essentially.

Zietlow: Place has a special connection in your poetry. You initially said your dream was to perform at the UN, and you've talked about different audiences that you've performed for and performing all over the world. How does physical space play into your poetry?

Kassir: If people are opening their ears to listen to what I have to say, it transitions from me talking to myself to an emotional relationship between speaker and listener. It's so profound that I think it determines the “space” of my poetry. I had one guy come to me, and shake my hand, look me in the eyes and say, “I've never heard anyone speak like you. I voted for Trump, but when you run for president you got my vote.” For me, it was less about the politics and more about the impact of my sincerity on him. I think that's the biggest thing that I offer as an artist. It creates a space of mutual understanding that I haven't felt anywhere else. I check my intentions frequently. I make sure I'm doing this for the right reasons, but typically if I'm sincere and honest, my audience will listen to me. And I've never had a bad experience so far.

Zietlow: Sort of on the topic of identity in your poetry, as someone who is both Syrian and American, how does your poetry draw from the experiences and memory of both countries and in both places?

Kassir: I have a poem about it. One part says, “My body is made of two types of blood, German and Syrian, Rhine River and Nahr al-Firat.Footnote ¹ I am split tongue.” The poem explores what my grandmother on my Arab side of the family gave me and what my little Iowan German mother gave me. I cannot ignore either part of me. When I tell someone in Syria or America where I'm from, I say “my father is Syrian but my mom is American.” I do not give people permission to turn me into one thing.

There's this word, liminality, which basically refers to when you're dwindling between two places, between two worlds, and poetry is how I claim that non-belonging as a space. Because otherwise, I don't have the Arabic to write poetry in Arabic, I can only scramble a few words and throw it into my English. It's almost like my identity is rooted in refusing to settle for one. I could say I'm a Syrian-American but it's an insufficient description of the identity I live, which depends on context.

Zietlow: You grew up in America and recently spent time living in Syria. How does your poetry help foster a connection with your Middle Eastern heritage, or rather does it at all?

Kassir: Born and raised in the United States, my native tongue is English, my mother gave me this language. But my process of writing poetry, especially after the meltdown I mentioned, compels me to reach out to my father's Syrian culture and Arabic language. When writing poetry, I would often sit with my father and ask him questions that I never thought of asking before: “What was it like growing up on the farm?” “How did my grandmother and grandfather meet?” I was trying to bridge this oceanic distance in the process.

In the book I'm working on now, I write about my grandmother and grandfather, but I never had the Arabic language skills to get to know them the way I wish I could have and so poetry is almost compensating for that. Trying to use the English language to describe what their Arabic prayers really meant is a challenge worth doing, because it feels like it's the only way I can connect to that part of the world.

I visited Syria but I really can't go back. My family is wanted there because of YouTube videos we made, which are anti-Bashar al-‘Assad – 100 percent. I'm sure the Syrian government has my picture, and my dad's Facebook profile picture on a government most-wanted list, because he used to share things on Facebook about the regime. It's sad, but for the sake of exposing what was happening there, we sacrificed our ability to go back. All I have now is the poetry and my father to connect me to that land.

Zietlow: Would you define your art as a type of resistance for you? Can you conceptualize a line between your art and an active political resistance?

Kassir: I genuinely feel that because I wear the scarf on my head, I am an act of resistance. I don't mean that I go into grocery stores expecting to fight and protest but at this point, existence is resistance. To hold onto and claim my identity, to tell someone this is what my name means in Arabic, and teach them an Arabic word… That is a type of resistance.

As far a writing poetry, I think in my younger years it was more defiant, more aggressive, and focused on making people uncomfortable. But now that I've grown older and familiarized myself with human nature and what makes a community grow, I think my poetry is more of a safe haven. As I said earlier, I try to foster sincerity as much as I can, and if it becomes an act of resistance, that's because someone politicized me and my words. But now, I don't write for the sake of defiance, because you run out of things to say, because it all sounds the same. My human reality is the most defiant thing out there. That is what I try to capture in my poetry.

One thing I realize is that I'm often writing about Muslims. We're easily the most controversial religion out there. And I believe that it's the creative spirit that compels us to have faith. Creativity is not something that appears in day-to-day life. The creative mind reaches far beyond reality. Islamic tradition says that what makes humans different from the Jinn, the angels, and other creatures of the world, is that we have language. Language unlocks something in our head that can take us anywhere. My book is written on a scale from grassroots to God and everywhere in between.

Zietlow: On the topic of language, I want to return to what you said earlier. You said your poetry is a manifestation of your connection with Syria. I'm wondering if this plays into diaspora narratives. Do you identify as part of the Syrian diaspora, and is that also part of that connection? Does that come through in your work?

Kassir: During my teens, I wanted to be part of the diaspora, but I only lived Syria for three years when I was seven. My mother raised us in our home, and we still spoke English as our mother tongue. Yes, we got to experience the beauty of that country, but it isn't mine to claim in the same way that this nation here is. I find it wrong for me to say, “I'm Syrian more than anything” when I'm not even fluent in Arabic. It's not fair to the authors and poets and artists and activists who are from there, who were born there and raised there and saw it in its prime and its destruction.

For me, from an identity standpoint, Syria is my fatherland in every sense of the word. It has the language that my holy scripture is written in. It is so rich and vibrant and it's the oldest civilization in history. The first alphabet wheel ever is there. And so, as a poet, I know that no matter what, I have ties there. But I can't say that I am a diasporic writer. America is my nation. And, I love Syria and my family has died there but the children I met there are more Syrian than I will ever be. I can only try with my words to “visit” the culture they have lived. So, identity is a struggle. Honestly, the Colorado Rocky Mountains are the closest thing I feel to home, as cheesy as it is.

Zietlow: You're from Colorado, you're from Denver, but is there something in particular that draws you to the mountains? You mentioned them earlier in this interview.

Kassir: When the meltdown did occur, I had been there snowmobiling and snowboarding, but I was young and never fully appreciated their gift of perspective. When I ran away to the mountains during my meltdown that was the first time I truly saw the place I was born.

In the Islamic tradition there is the story of the Prophet Muhammad, who would go up to a cave – this was before he became a prophet, before the religion even existed – and just take a moment for isolation. I felt closer to God on the mountain by myself. Sometimes, if I felt I was truly alone, I would take off my scarf and let my hair blow in the snowy wind… It's a haven on this planet, and the fact that mountains even exist is a freaking miracle! Two plates just collided into each other. I feel small in those mountains, but I also feel that anything is possible with so much space to fill.

Zietlow: One thing I've noticed listening to your work and knowing a little bit about your life is that food seems to be very important. I know in some of your poetry you talk about food a lot. Could you elaborate on that? Why is food so important? I know that you worked in your father's restaurant.

Kassir: I swear, working at the restaurant is why I can speak the way I can speak, because as a child, I would delight in telling patrons stories about my family. I like to think the hummus is so good that they will never forget what I said! Everyone loves good food and if you take important men, who plan wars and political conflict in their expensive suits, and feed them our Syrian grandmother's cooking, they will eat. The foundation of any culture, any society, is food. It's about the delight of the food and its story. When I worked in my father's restaurant, I would tell people that the recipes were my grandmother's and I would tell them about her farm.

Originally from the city, she gave my grandfather the privilege of working on that farm! There were so many apricot trees. She was a mastermind of the land. I think that's something else about food: The story is connected to its land of origin. Every revolution, every major revolution has begun with farmers in one way or another. They are people who make do with what they have. They rely on the sky and the dirt to serve them, and no one else.

Zietlow: Do you find that your grandparents’ lifestyle of being on the farm informs the way that you live and carry yourself?

Kassir: In Syria, it's not just about the farm, it's about the family. Food wasn't just something you ate, but each meal was an appointment with family. Everyone is home for dinner. That is a fact in Arab culture. You don't miss dinner. In the same way that Islam is religion of the society, where we lived in Syria, dinner was the religion of the home. That is it.

So family, that is the point. It's not an individualistic society like we have here. I miss dinner all the time at home, in Colorado, because I travel and I'm barely at home. I hope that when I have my own family someday that I will be able to carry this a little more with me. Meal equals family, and everyone who is sitting to eat with you is your family.

I miss my grandparents terribly. My grandfather passed away in Syria. There was a siege around the city so he did not have access to medicine that he needed. During his burial, the Syrian government launched a nearby barrel bomb, which is a type of bomb filled with nails and explosives. The men that buried him said the bomb landed nine meters away from them but it did not explode. They managed to bury my grandfather intact. Had it exploded, all of those men would have been limbs. My whole family feels like a miracle sometimes. They return to the dirt. The dirt they're buried in, the dirt they planted their seeds in, that's where my grandfather is now. And I can't imagine they would prefer anything else.

Zietlow: On the topic of family, you've talked a little bit about your brother, and I also have a brother. And with siblings in general, oftentimes I think those relationships are just so special and unique, or sometimes they're not, but could you maybe speak to that a little bit? If your relationship with your siblings has informed your work.

Kassir: So, with my scarf I don't have to cover my hair in front of basically anyone I can't marry. Uncles, my dad, my husband, brothers, all women can see my hair. I believe that family are a type of soulmates. My brothers are my best friends. I can't do without them. My sisters are the most wonderful, beautiful friends, and I can't imagine a life without knowing their characters. I genuinely believe they are soulmates of mine. I'm very lucky, because we have a big family. Since my parents divorced after 30 years, and my father remarried, I ended up gaining a baby brother and a baby sister now. The girl looks just like me and I just want to tell her: “You don't even know the world you're about to grow up in.” I'm old enough to be this child's mother.

New life is amazing. This is the love that needs to be preserved. When the world is horrible I can at least come home and hug my family and that's very precious. Not everyone has that privilege.