The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: All Water Has Perfect Memory by Nada Samih-Rotondo

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is an excerpt from All Water Has Perfect Memory by Nada Samih-Rotondo (Jaded Ibis Press 2023).

MERCY

                                        Yafa, Palestine 1920

Til-yat-ruh-he is an Arabic phrase meaning “my soul rose up,”
describing an experience so troubling that your soul almost
leaves your body. I’ve heard my mother say til-yat-ruh-he
when referencing something being strenuous, painful, or even
boring if she was being ironic. I also heard her describe her
experience of birthing me this way.

Nada (she/her) is a multi-genre Palestinian writer, educator, and mother deeply attuned to her adopted land’s stories. A refugee English language learner, Nada grew up deeply impacted by family separation and state violence both in Palestine and on Narragansett land or so called Rhode Island. As a working class caretaker, Nada aims to create innovative, anti-imperialist works of literature that play at the intersections of the more than human world, expands imaginations, illuminates connections between land and body, and inspires joyful resistance. Her writing has appeared in Masters Review, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, and others. All Water Has Perfect Memory, a multigenerational hybrid memoir, is her first book.

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.