Tag: Don’t change my name

The following is an award winning poem by Sarah Sassoon, published on her website. It is reproduced with permission.

“Sarah is an Australian born, Iraqi Jewish writer, poet, and educator. She is the author of the award winning picture book, Shoham’s Bangle and This is Not a Cholent. Her poetry micro chapbook, This is Why We Don’t Look Back was awarded the Harbor Review Jewish Women’s Poetry prize…She received her MFA in English Literature and Poetry from Bar Ilan University. Sarah’s writing follows her curiosity exploring her Iraqi Jewish history, the story of refugees and resilience, the rich, layered 2600-year-old culture of Babylonian Jews, with a special interest in Middle Eastern women’s experience.”

Don’t Change my Name
By Sarah Sassoon

changing Ethiopian names
is an old immigrant story
my grandfather
and his brothers
were known
by different last names

don’t tell me who I am
a piece of paper
curled into a cigarette
smoked up
in one puff

so we argue over my grandfather’s grave
was his name Nachum Shalom
or David Nachum
or Ben David
or Hacham
I only knew him as Abba Nagi
the singsong saying
over any scroll
didn’t really matter
to me
to him now

you learn as an immigrant
that home is in your heart
so beat that drum song strong
and smile
welcome the birthland people
they have no idea
they’re strangers to themselves
they’ve never had to know their heart
it takes crossing borders for that

and who knows those frayed edges
better than one
without a passport
or a parent’s grave to visit
or a birth certificate
or a bank account with all those verified official paper facts

I look for heart whispers
that call my name

and my grandfathers and his fathers
and those before him
and I know that I am at home
in the embrace
of what cannot be named