Wanting in Arabic

by Trish Salah

Keywords: Poetry. Translit. Transgender. Queer. Women's Writing. Arab Diaspora.

Publisher's Description: Braiding theoretical concerns with the ambivalences of sexed and raced identity, Wanting in Arabic attempts to traverse the fantasies of foundational loss and aggressive nostalgia in order to further a poetics of a conscious partiality of being, of generous struggle and comic rather than tragic misrecognition.

"Trish Salah's poetic sequence is not simply a narrative of gender change; it's a wandering, thoughtful text, one both fierce and tremulous"--Erin Moure.

"This is a beautiful and disturbing collection of poems, writing from the uncharted langscape of the third sex"--Mary Di Michele.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, Transgender, LGBT, Canada, Gender, Islam

90 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Born in Halifax, Trish Salah is the author of the poetry collections, Wanting in Arabic (TSAR 2002, Mawenzi House 2013) and Lyric Sexology Vol. 1 (Roof 2014, Metonymy 2017) and co-editor of special issues of Canadian Review of American Studies 35.2 (2005), TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1.4 (2014) and Arc Poetry Magazine 94 (2021). The 2013 edition of Wanting in Arabic won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction and she was Writer-in-Residence at Pierre Burton House in 2019. Her writing has been supported with grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Writers’ Trust of Canada. At the University of Winnipeg she organized the conference, Writing Trans Genres: Emergent Literatures and Criticism and the symposium, Decolonizing and Decriminalizing Trans Genres. Currently an associate professor of Gender Studies at Queen’s University, she edits the Journal of Critical Race Inquiry and is a member of the editorial boards of Eoagh and Topia. She lives in T'koronto in the traditional territory of the Mississauga, the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabeg.

Reviews

[Merritt K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is referentially and structurally dense which isn't typically my preference for poetry, but I think there is good reason for it here -- it was written in 2002 and deals with transsexuality. To me, the complex structures Salah builds with the help of classical references help keep the text from slipping into conventional modes of talking about the trans body.

It's pretty incredible that this was written a decade and a half ago, because poems like "Furious: hate's disposition" (about shunning, juxtaposing feminist expulsion of trans women and Israeli occupation of Palestine) could easily have been written today. On the one hand that's a little depressing, but on the other it points to an author who was anticipating critical shifts away from dominant discourses of gender and community years ago.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever read something that felt too smart for you? Winnipeg-based writer Trish Salah’s poetry collection Wanting In Arabic was like that for me, especially when I first picked it up. I’ve actually had quite a few unsuccessful starts with this book: I borrowed it from the library twice, and neither time did I manage to finish it before a) someone else requested it, or b) the library wouldn’t let me renew it any more times. There was something about reading this poetry collection that just couldn’t be rushed. I managed to find my own copy of it at Little Sister’s in Vancouver (yay queer bookstores!) and then, reading in fits and spurts, a lot of the time in the bath, I finally (re)read the poems in Wanting In Arabic.

So, needless to say, this book was a challenging reading experience for me. But—and this is a significant but—in the end, it was also very rewarding. So, if you want to read Wanting In Arabic but you’re intimidated, I have a few tips for you...

Check out the rest of my review on my blog: https://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wo...

[malik · Rating 5 out of 5]

poetry addressing palestinian suffering and queer identity written by an arabic trans woman is something i didn’t know i needed. loved everything about this.

[Nieslowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meticulous lyrical poetry, on identity, transformation and orientation.

“because I was caught up in my own narrative, careening towards your thighs, your lips and yours,
white tusks shining
like knights on white charges off to slay sexism”

Salah offers an enriching poetic literature filled with ecstasy about Arab trans and lesbian identities, from the perspective of a “third sex”.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay so a fair bit of this was honestly totally over my head but most of it I really enjoyed, a certain working in/with/against language that resonated and a vast scope of body words family land and politics.

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this was a really incredible read. I'll need some time to think more about this (and probably re-read it) before I have much in the way of coherent thoughts about this, but I definitely recommend this.

[Danni Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reading a lot of trans poetry lately and it's THE GREATEST.

[hh · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

poems that bring out vivid images and emotions although they felt like cobwebs - difficult to hold on to.

[B · Rating 5 out of 5]

soo beautiful absolutely loved this ❤

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[leftiesmudge · Rating 4 out of 5]

An act of pure creation!

[meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was incredibly beautiful, but also managed to make me feel this kind of empty disappointment about the state of our world. I definitely need to reread and research some of the topics in here to better grasp it all. Sometimes, the structure of the pieces did confuse me, but that’s definitely just because I’m newer to reading poetry. I have a feeling that my reread could bump my rating to 5 stars, as I’ll hopefully be able to get deeper into it with a better understanding.

[Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was incredible. Absolutely demands re-reading (I got it from the library, but I've put it on a list to buy). I don't think I can even talk coherently about it - the deftness of language is stunning.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

June 2 - I'm struggling with this one. At times, achingly beautiful. At others, bordering on incoherent (for me). I keep going.

June 3 - Hysteria of Origins is a wonderful section.

A book to return to, out of which to slowly draw more meaning.

[Hesper · Rating 4 out of 5]

It might be impossible to grasp Salah's dexterous linguistic plays, or structurally complex approach to discussing transsexuality, embodiment, and gender identity on just one read. Fortunately, that just means I'll have to acquire a copy and reread at leisure.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

her poetry is effortlessly dense and operates often on so many levels that I could only pull the vaguest sense from it. this is a collection that demands more than one reading

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times, absolutely inspiring and perfect. At others, I lose it.

[Randomerde · Rating 3 out of 5]

harm envelops as
gender reconstitutes
fertile graves of love