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Kaleem Hawa

Kaleem Hawa has written about art, film, and literature for the New York Review of Books, The Nation, and Artforum, among others.



Articles Available Online


Hating it Lush: On Tel Aviv

Essay

May 2023

Kaleem Hawa

Essay

May 2023

I   They made the desert bloom, tall sparkling towers and clean Bauhaus lines, and apple-ring acacias, and teal blue shuttle buses, and stock...

Poetry

Issue No. 28

Three poems from issue 28

Sarah Barnsley

Valzhyna Mort

Kaleem Hawa

Poetry

Issue No. 28

Valzhyna Mort, ‘Music for Girl’s Voice and Bison’   Sarah Barnsley, ‘Virginia Woolf Has Fallen Over’   Kaleem Hawa,...

1 Cessation of Breath: Is He Breathing?   He’s not breathing, and he cannot go on like this He needs air Mouth-to-mouth is a fool’s game: you must not believe that you have enough air for the both of you The body should supply itself, but in this it can be encouraged Breath begets breath, and life life One O says yes to another O and that equals oxygen One god nods to the next god, who nods to the next and so on Therefore plant plants, as follows: (i) The chest is just a gathering of shapes as it is, and it knows full well what it means to be a shrubbery There is depth and breadth enough for soil, and it lends itself naturally to inhabitance From there to conurbation Drop seeds and sow It grows in spite of itself (ii) The extremities are a framework already in place: honeysuckles, for example, thrive on the order inherent in limbs; fingers are the beginnings of mathematics, and you will find the sweetpea loops nicely to a ring; ivies are many and incessant (iii) The holes of the head are a blessing Eye sockets, in particular, are favourable to succulents 2 Cardiac Arrest: Is There Any Rhythm to Him?   They say: cut the wood yourself and it will warm you twice It is the same for the heart – if you beat it, it will beat And it is the same with blood – it won’t move unless you move it This is the kind of work that must be done by hand This is monks and manuscripts This is sculpture This is the work your father did, is where you came from (i)        Locate the heart by feeling (ii)       Trace out the gridlocked veins (iii)      Prepare the bell for pealing (iv)       Make fists and take your aim (v)        Pound it till it feels like kissing (vi)       Push the blood between your hands (vii)    

Contributor

November 2019

Kaleem Hawa

Contributor

November 2019

Kaleem Hawa has written about art, film, and literature for the New York Review of Books, The Nation, and...

after Mahmoud Darwish    Why is a boy an exclamation,  and why are his dead a period?,  why do his sinews tighten when he sees  a Palestinian body? Does his vision narrow  because of their flight,  or because their world is raining with salt?  Why is a boy with a gun different  from a boy with a jail cell?,  if the tools of rupture are our arms for  repurposing the body, and the arms of  the state are our means of repurposing the male,  are we finally useful and breathing and nervous…?  Does the white mean Night’s arrival?,  or does night signal the white’s escape?,  and when that white city boy becomes  a White City man,  does the hate in his heart subside?,  or does it become an ellipses,  a Bauhaus history of stories started  and left unfinished 
You Arrive at A White Checkpoint and Emerge Unscathed

Prize Entry

November 2019

Kaleem Hawa


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Interview

Issue No. 1

Interview with Paula Rego

Ben Eastham

Helen Graham

Interview

Issue No. 1

Dame Paula Rego introduces me into her North London home with a crooked smile and a plate of biscuits....

fiction

July 2014

Zone

Mathias Enard

TR. Charlotte Mandell

fiction

July 2014

I remember the day Andrija the invincible collapsed for the first time, the warrior of warriors whom we’d never...

poetry

January 2016

Two New Poems

Elena Fanailova

TR. Eugene Ostashevsky

poetry

January 2016

(POEM FOR ZHADAN)   This (my) country will be the death of you Its military mathematics Its secret services...

 

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