About Me

Hi, I'm Harper Lee Simmons. It's pronounced Har-peh, because my dad's from the south. He's a foreign service agent from the US; my mom's a professor from Morocco. I grew up dividing my time between Rabat, Casablanca, and the countryside, with occasional trips to France. (I speak Arabic, French, and, yes, English.) I was born in Morocco but spent my first year or two in the States to get some fancy medical treatments. Mom and I and my brother and sister usually hang out at home while Dad's away on business. I have a younger brother, Will, and a younger sister, Charlotte. Dad named us all after his "heroes of literature": Nelle Harper Lee, William Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte. Mom and us kids are Muslim and Dad's a Baptist. He met my mother on an assignment and hasn't been able to get his heart away from Morocco since. Now I'm in the States attending a boarding school. I got detained after a fifty-state whirlwind tour, probably because of my religion. Living at "home" has been difficult to adjust to, but I'm getting there. With some help from my wonderful teacher and new friends, my United States citizenship has become something tangible. Oh, and I'm a poet. Yeah, I might not be your typical American Girl... but I think that's something I can live with.

15 April 2006

Not in the Mood, Arabic

not in the mood
oh, i don't feel like writing poetry today
can i leave that in my past
too much effort
and i am hungry
but we don't eat for another two hours
so i'm leaving for the market to get a snack
but i think i'll stop by the boy instead

Explanation about the 2:30 am post:
Yeah that wasn't really me. LOL. I had sent it to Sam, my guide or whatever, and she said she was starting a blog for me and that was the first post, so I said that was fine. Where she is/the school is it was 5:30 PM the previous day, so I am NOT staying up late writing poetry again, Mum, if you're reading this...

arabic
in morocco
they write using the arabic language
and arabic numerals
and in america
and in my dad's office
they write using the english language
and arabic numerals
so hopefully i'll still have some of morroco at school
i can write my arabic numerals and remember
i once wrote using the arabic language
i once spoke using the arabic language
i could get an amazing job, my father says
because i can speak arabic and english (just like him)
i say, that must suck, having to fight terrorists
i don't wish to know any
and all my arabic friends are nice
i don't want to live with the prejudice of america
will it rub off on me too?

1 comment:

Sam Parkington said...

Hey Harper
I really like your poem called "Arabic". I think it's really relavant to what's going on in the world today. Your enthusiam and toleration makes me excited that you're coming to OWT!! Love, Sam