Abstract

Despite the recurrent references to the figure of the grandmother in the poetry of contemporary ethnic American writers, few critical works analyze the importance of those references, particularly in the poetry written by Arab American writers. To this end, the study traces the recurrence of the image of the grandmother in the poetry of contemporary Arab American authors with the aim of highlighting the significant role she plays in the lives of second-generation Arab immigrants living in the United States today. The analysis of a selection of poems written by five Arab American poets (Naomi Shihab Nye, Lisa Suhair Majaj, Mohja Kahf, Hala Alyan, and Jesse Rizkallah) shows that the grandmother is a central figure in relation to which the speakers in the poems address pivotal questions such as living in diaspora, connecting with the native culture, and remembering the past. Whether physically present or present as a memory in the lives of her grandchildren, the figure of the grandmother in the selected poems stands for life, the home, faith, productivity, and resistance. For those second-generation immigrants, most of whom have had limited exposure to their native cultures, the presence of the grandmother in their lives, or at least the memories they still have of her after her death, is vital in their struggle to strike a balance between the two sides of their identities.