Blood Poetry hematopoiesis: the formation and development of blood cells. Haima for “blood,” and poiesis for “poetry,” meaning “making” or “creating.” Blood is made in the bone marrow, starts out as a stem. On average, it takes four to six weeks for your blood to completely renew. Which means on average, every four to six weeks you are created anew. This does not happen all at once. By the time new blood is made, some old song in you has died off. This is to say— Your cells are odes composed from the soft wet tissue of literature, two million times over by the second. Your blood, an epic in the flowing, a hymn that keeps its pulse pulse pulse pulsing steady across the sixty thousand miles of artery and vein. Every slosh is a created verse, each gush a metrical rhyme. In other words, you are living scripture. In you is the original book, the divine language, a sung psalm, a choir leaping from born edge to unknown ledge. You created prophecy. You magnificent bard. You sublime troubadour. You exquisite poem stumbling on new made legs through who knows where and God knows why. You fine ballad that lives. You volume of possibility. You injured human that bleeds. - Moudi Sbeity
I love learning a new term, phrase, word, or any scientific tidbit, and then turning to poetry to process it. Writing a poem here not only gives me an opportunity to engage with what I’m learning in a meaningful way, but I then actually remember it. So often I’ll catch myself in conversation saying “hey, I learned about this thing recently, and I wrote a poem about it.”
I don’t usually offer much by way of prompts, but if there is a word that has caught your attention, or if you’ve learned something super cool (like how black holes aren’t actually empty, they’re full of light - yes, I did write a poem about this), then go ahead and write about it! Expand beyond the boundaries of the scientific definition. Everything is metaphor. Everything is dharma. What else can you learn about what it means to be a human stumbling through space time made of all these complex intricate systems? So much! There is so much to learn, and that quite frankly is what keeps me most sane.
News + Events
📚 If you are feeling called to support this work further, please consider joining my Book Tour Workshop / Fundraiser on August 22 from 10 - 12 MDT. I’ll be reading from my forthcoming books, offering prompts, and then opening up space to share. Sign up here.
📘 Both books are now available for pre-order
Habibi Means Beloved (memoir) / Alhamdulillah Anway (poetry)
🌱 Sept 8 - Book conversation and workshop with ZenJen Brown at 4pm ET. Register here - free.
💜 Save the date. Monday, October 5: The Raft will host the official online book launch for my debut memoir, Habibi Means Beloved. Watch for event details soon.
This is breathtaking and beautifully done. I love the interrelationships you bring to light. Shukrun, habibi.
I have love the old poiesis since I first came upon it many decades ago. I also like a lot your use of its, at least, dual meanings here in your poem. Indeed.
I also write this as someone who once had acute myeloid leukemia. The process of creation began going bad in my marrow and making misinformed cells. Fortunately, that has now ceased in me though I still write strange and sometimes awkward poetry.