“Due to her [Tété] struggle, activism is woven into my family — from my grandparents to my father to me to my children one day.” (Photo courtesy of Hanan Nyrabeah)

Warning: This article mentions violence, which could be triggering to some readers.

Syrian-American poet Hanan Nyrabeah writes about how her grandmother’s revolutionary spirit fuels her poetry.

My entire childhood centered around my dad trying to help the Syrian Revolution. A lot of my earliest photos and memories were in protests or local fundraisers in support of the Syrian Revolution. I also attended public hearings in Washington, DC with him as a child, too young to understand the complicated talks, but my dad wanted me to be exposed to the importance of being selfless and trying to help others. I didn't quite understand the hearing but I did understand the importance of it happening. The tragedies that have happened over the past years played a big role in understanding how privileged I am in contrast to Syrian children that were born into the Syrian tragedy as I could have been.

The Syrian conflict began officially in 2011 as a product of the Arab Spring. Victims of the Assad regime span millions, and hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died. More than 13 million have been displaced from their homes, internally and externally, making Syria one of the largest refugee crises in recent history. But many people aren’t aware that there was an earlier uprising about 30 years prior in Hama, the city my grandparents are from. The goal of the uprising was to take power away from Hafiz Al-Assad, the dictator at the time and father of the current president. It was led by young men and women, including my grandparents. That uprising was crushed within months by the dictator and an estimated 30 to 40 thousand were killed in a very short period. As a result, the rebels who were left, fled to neighboring countries.

My grandmother, whom I'm named for, was very involved in the uprising, but she passed in a car accident in 1987 when my father was a toddler, so I've only heard stories about her involvement as a rebel.

My step-grandmother, my Tètè, as I call her, was a student back in 1980. The government’s forces came to her dorm to question her about family members involved in the uprising. The soldiers claimed they were taking her in for “just five minutes,” which is the title of the book she wrote about her experience. Those five minutes turned into nine years in jail. This type of incarceration was and still is very common — where people disappeared for no reason — and it affected millions over the years. It was also rampant in the recent conflict as well, where an estimated 200 to 300 thousand people have disappeared with no word if they have been murdered or imprisoned.

“I never intend to romanticize the experiences of Tètè and other Syrians in my poems. I only wish to remember their struggles and honor their stories.”

— Hanan Nyrabeah

Tètè was released in 1989 and she moved to Jordan, where she met my grandfather, a widower with two children. She lives in Turkiye at the moment, caring for and teaching Arabic and chapters from the Holy Quran to Syrian refugee children. Due to her struggle, activism is woven into my family — from my grandparents to my father to me to my children one day.

I originally began writing this poem back in late February, after the earthquake that shook Northern Syria and Türkiye. That earthquake directly hit the town my grandmother lives and teaches in. While she's fine, Alhamdulillah, some of my grandmother’s students tragically died in the disaster. Little kids born into war, thought they had escaped the destruction of their government only to have nature turn on them as well.

I feel that poems can sometimes romanticize tragedy. I never intend to romanticize the experiences of Tètè and other Syrians in my poems. I only wish to remember their struggles and honor their stories.

“sea air seeping through the wind”

my grandmother reads quran with the window open/hennaed hair sneaking out from beneath her jilbab/steaming slim-waisted teacup beside her/salt wind seeping through the air/rusting the room serene

i yearn to ask someone/anyone/how a slight woman/voice sharp/yet soft/was jailed for existing/for being related to a man screaming freedom/for being in the right place/ at the wrong time

i cannot ask her/why bring back bitter memories/why remind her of the time when she lived in a land where/there was prison unless you bowed to a portrait of a tyrant/and prison even if you did/the time when she lived in a land where/even if you did everything right/you did something wrong

why suck away the peace that comes from being beyond a borderline/the peace that comes from knowing the bombs you hear cannot hurt you/even if they are hurting your people

i wonder sometimes/how you recover/how you fill the heart hollowed/from being a girl in a cell/for nine years/then i wonder/if you ever do

she cups her hands/bows her head/reminds me to pray/arabic accented with the city of hama/her voice calm/yet powerful/like sea air