break (clustered)
From breaking poems — Hammad's hip-hop-fused book of war, women, and survival — a meditation on cluster munitions and what they leave behind: do not fear what has blown up; fear the unexploded.
Listen
Recording: TED
Do not fear what has blown up. If you must, fear the unexploded.
(excerpt)
About this poem
“break (clustered)” appears in Suheir Hammad’s collection breaking poems (Cypher Books, 2008), winner of the 2009 American Book Award. All thirty-eight poems in the book carry “break” in their titles, appropriating hip-hop’s techniques — the break, the sample, the loop — to write the breaking of bodies and places, from Gaza to New Orleans. This poem turns on the aftermath of cluster bombs: the ordnance that keeps killing long after the war is declared over.
Hammad performed the poem at TEDWomen in December 2010; the lines above follow the official transcript of that performance.