Manifesto for the Chaste Wanton

Manifesto for the Chaste Wanton

She will be your wild mare

at night, but in the day

she’ll blush if you glimpse a nipple

through her blouse & look away

In private she’ll pounce, a panther,

to tear you flank from thigh

but outside, one rough word

from you & her passion will die

There’s no feral depravity

you’d not drive her to in bed

Come morning, she’ll hide in your chest

like a child, from all she did

~ From Mohja Kahf’s unpublished love poetry manuscript written in 1999.

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Mohja Kahf  is a Syrian-American poet and novelist.  Her first collection of poetry, E-mails from Scheherazad, evokes the mixture of pride and shame involved in being an “other,” with characters balancing on the line between assimilating and maintaining the habits of a good Muslim.  In addition to contemporary Muslim women, Mohja’s poetry also explores figures from Islamic history including Hagar, the wife of the prophet Abraham, Khadija and Aisha, wives of the Prophet Muhammad, and Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad.  According to The New York Times, her writing on contemporary subjects “draws sharp, funny, earthy portraits of the fault line separating Muslim women from their Western counterparts.” Of the intersection of Islam and art, Mohja says: “One of the primary messages of the Qur’an is that people should recognize the beautiful and do what is beautiful. This is not simply a moral beauty but a visual and auditory beauty as well. Conduct should be beautiful, writing should be beautiful and speaking should be beautiful.”