Established in 1980, Colgate University’s Living Writers is the English department’s signature series that allows students and community members to meet established and emerging contemporary writers. The programming runs from September through November each year and opened Thursday, Sept. 5 with writer and New York University Professor of Clinical Psychology Hala Alyan, who read from her most recent poetry collection, “The Moon That Turns You Back.” Professors Jennifer Brice and Peter Balakian organize the Living Writers series alongside student interns.
“Hala Alyan is a cosmopolitan poet, and her vantage is compelling,” Balakian said. “Between her witnessing and her transforming language, she makes arresting poems that move between the explosions and implosions of uprooting, exile, trauma, massive bombing and death saturation, and also between the inner world of the intimate spaces of the body in which life and death, procreation and absence, autonomy and fate are at stake.”
Alyan discussed form, identity and activism with students enrolled in Brice’s Living Writers classes and Balakian’s poetry workshops during a question-and-answer session. In particular, she reflected on the tension between art-making and action in the face of violence.
“I do believe in the necessity of art,” Alyan said. “There’s something about having a certain identity and receiving praise about beautiful things. There’s cognitive dissonance.”
Alyan also explained her intensified empathy for the victims of the violence in Gaza since becoming a mother.
“Every single one of those children, men and women was someone’s entire world. I can’t not feel it in this visceral way,” Alyan said.
Alyan claimed that because she is a young femme American citizen without an accent, her voice has been amplified, providing her with opportunities to reach a wider audience than other Palestinians.
“There’s a way that I’m read as palatable that I’m able to get farther. You have to be digestible to have access to certain spaces. I’ve had a lot of internal conflict about this issue, especially recently,” Alyan said. “Some people say, ‘these spaces are not for us, and you shouldn’t be in them.’”
Alyan read nine of her recent poems to a packed audience in Persson Hall. Her lyrical poems took life, and her performances of “Habibti Ghazal” and “Revision” were particularly striking. She also advised student activists to continue making spaces for solidarity on campus and to be unapologetic when they do experience burnout.
Finally, Alyan was the guest of honor at a dinner party at Balakian’s home.
“Everyone has been incredibly warm and welcoming. I’ve been very struck by the depth of questions. They’ve been very beautiful,” Alyan said. “I’ve done a bunch of campus visits in general, and I didn’t expect this level of warmth, friendliness and casualness. That part’s been really wonderful. Like, I’ve never done this before. Usually people, after a reading, will be like, ‘We’re going to take you out to a restaurant,’ and it’s much more formal. So this is really beautiful. Especially right now, there’s something heartwarming.”
Colgate’s close-knit community presents a unique opportunity for programs like Living Writers to have a resounding and personal impact on students and authors alike.
Sophomore Scarlet Fishkind, a student in Brice’s Living Writers class, praised the program and its reputation on campus.
“I signed up for Living Writers because it seemed like too much of a special opportunity to pass up. As [an intended] English major, the ability to speak firsthand to various best-selling authors seemed incredible,” Fishkind said. “Everyone I spoke to that had previously taken the course had raving reviews, expressing how special the course and [Brice] were.”
Fishkind provided further insight into the intense and stirring conversations held with Alyan.
“My favorite part of Hala Alyan’s visit was her remarks about motherhood, femininity and the female body,” Fishkind said. “Within her collection, Alyan very vulnerably discusses her struggles giving birth, in addition to speaking on objectification of the body and relationship dynamics. Although these topics are extremely hard to grapple with and discuss so openly, Alyan spoke to us about her newfound experience with motherhood after such a long and emotionally taxing journey.”
Colgate will have nine more authors — including National Book Award finalist Hanif Abdurraqib and Pulitzer Prize finalist Percival Everett — on campus throughout the coming weeks. The diverse array of books included in this year’s programming opens students to crucial discussions about prejudice, activism and overcoming challenges.
“Was the grief worth the poem? No, / but you don’t interrogate a weed / for what it does with wreckage,” Alyan writes in her poem “Half-Life in Exile.”
