A Key Without a Door, by Dalal Yaqub

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

A Key Without A Door is a personal recollection of Palestinian livelihood through a liminal or out-of-place sense of being. Moving through memory and inheritance, homeland and exile, this collection of poetry and prose delves into what it means to belong to a place that exists simuntaneously as a geographical space, folktale, and longing. Within lyrical reflections that are rooted in the symbol of the Palestinian right-to-return, this work traces Palestinian being or identity not only by dispossession displacement, but by defiance; carrying the homeland of Palestine in the body while navigating life elsewhere, as an American citizen.

Thus, A Key Without a Door stands as a testament to the fruitfulness of the Palestinian morale and the persistance of a people who refuse to be forgotten. Through these brief moments of wandering between beauty, grief, humor, and hope, this collection invites readers into a realm where Palestinians carry their identity wherever they are, like a key, yet liminally caged in the event of liberation—being without a door to open into.