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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Joe Zarba
PAMELA L. LASKIN is a lecturer in the English department at City College of New York and directs the Poetry Outreach Center. A published poet and author, she has written several poetry chapbooks and children’s books, including Homer the Little Stray Cat, and short YA stories for both Sassy and Young Miss magazines. She is currently a Colin Powell fellow and a SEED grant recipient for Poetry Outreach, and she has received three RF CUNY grants for completion of creative work. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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CREDITS
Cover art © 2017 by Kenny Park
Cover design by Katie Fitch
COPYRIGHT
“No Place to Hide” from Elemental Poems by Tommy Olofsson. Copyright © 1995 by White Pine Press. Reprinted by permission of White Pine Press.
“The Music We Are” from Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing, translated by Coleman Barks. Copyright © 2003 by Coleman Barks. Reprinted by permission of HarperOne.
“Lesson from the Kama Sutra,” “Mural,” “A Rhyme for the Odes,” and “Who Am I Without Exile,” from Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems by Mahmoud Darwish. Copyright © 2003, 2013 by The Regents of the University of California. Reprinted by permission of University of California Press.
“Your Village” from Eyes, Stones by Elana Bell. Reprinted by permission of LSU Press. Copyright © 2012 by Elana Bell.
Acknowledgment is made to the following publications in which these poems by the author appeared or will soon be appearing:
“What I Love.” www.bestpoem.com/2014
“Imagine: The Pharmacist’s Profession.” Talisman. January 2015
“It’s Complicated,” “No More,” “Through the Window,” “Where I’m From,” “You Just Don’t Understand.” Sukoon
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
RONIT & JAMIL. Text copyright © 2017 by Pamela L. Laskin. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949687
ISBN 978-0-06-245854-4
EPub Edition © February 2017 ISBN 9780062458551
17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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*His Abi keeps an apartment in East Jerusalem. This way he doesn’t need to go through checkpoints all the time.
1. Consuming Fire
2. Creator
3. Father of All
4. Father of Light
5. My great father
6. My father is my hero
7. May God bless my father
8. I love you, Dad
*Zionism: Jewish nationalism; the belief that Jews should have their own homeland.
9. Supermarket
10. Bread
*Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 2
*Rumi: The Book of Love, “The Music We Are”
*Shooting star
*Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2
*Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2
*Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 5
*Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2
*Ghazal: A Middle-Eastern lyric poem with a fixed number of verses and a repeated rhyme, typically on the theme of love and often set to music.
*Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 5
*Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 5
*Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2
1. From “Who Am I, Without Exile” by Mahmoud Darwish
2. From “A Rhyme for the Odes” by Mahmoud Darwish
3. From “Mural” by Mahmoud Darwish
4. From “Lesson from the Kama Sutra (Wait for Her),” by Mahmoud Darwish
*Chana: Ronit’s mother
*Layla: Jamil’s mother
Ronit & Jamil Page 6
