Author of the new Chapbook: The People is Singular
Andy Young is the co-editor of Meena, a bilingual Arabic-English literary journal, and teaches Creative Writing at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Her work was recently featured on National Public Radio’s The World and published in Callaloo, Mizna, and The Cortland Review. Her chapbook, The People is Singular, collaboration with Egyptian photographer Salwa Rashad, which focuses on the Egyptian Revolution, was published in January 2012 by Press Street Press. Andy, an early winner of the Faulkner Society’s gold medal for Best Poem, has been a member of the faculty of
Words & Music on several occasions.
Sample of Andy’s Work from The People is Singular
Egyptian Spring
it begins with human wicks
and ends with laughing women
and an anklet-ed dove
a wedding with a tank backdrop
a wedding couple inking
fingers at the first election
it begins with a vegetable seller
and ends with human wicks
cross crescent unbelievers
Christians circling
Muslims praying circling
praying Christians
it begins with human wicks
and ends with the martyr
who died with a smile
on his face it begins
with the New Year’s bomb
in the church it begins
with Khaled Said’s face
printed in papers beaten
by cop thugs in daylight it ends
with paper saved from burning
that bomb was ordered
by the Interior Ministry it begins
with tens of thousands lining up
no one claiming the martyr’s
body everyone there to see its smile