I’d marked my calendar a while back (yes, I still carry a paper calendar) to make a point to go see Handal as her presentation was scheduled during the Center’s Arabasque Festival: Arts of the Arab World and because up until then I’d had very limited experience with women performers of Arab descent. Particularly, I was curious to see how Handal would combine Poetry, Theater and Film in the short hour that is often allotted to Millennium Stage performers.

So against my body’s wishes (I was BEYOND tired) I hoped the Kennedy Center Limo (Metrobus 81) and made my way to a comfy seat in the back….admittedly fighting off sleep. Of all the material Handal presented I must say that I loved her poetry the most. Especially, ‘Against the Wall’, the one where she talks about her experience ‘Flying’, the series of  ‘love poems’, ‘In Jerusalem’ and the finale Poem titled ‘Bethlehem’.

Admittedly, my body won out and I got lost in slumber land for the film presentation and the storytelling experience (this is not indicative of the quality of the Artist or Art’s presented just my inability to fight my body’s request to rest). So I don’t have any wowing thought provoking exchange about my interactions with those presentations.  I’ll do better next time.

Please check out the Kennedy Center’s info on Handal and see Nathalie Handal’s Kennedy Center Peformance HERE! What a beautiful gift to be a Poet AND to be a sharing Poet, not one whose identify is known only to the paper it sits on.