Tuesday we have the privilege and pleasure of a visit from Hayan Charara.

There are a couple of things I'd like you to consider about his writing before we meet.

First, we have two genres of writing from Hayan's work: poetry and prose. Keeping in mind what Lisa Majaj said about the move from poetry to prose, how would you compare Hayan's approach to similar themes in "8 Houses from the Birthplace of Henry Ford" and "Becoming the Center of Mystery." Also, think of questions you might ask him regarding the advantages and pitfalls of these different genres.

Second, Hayan's writing (especially "Camp Dearborn," "Becoming the Center of Mystery" and "8 Houses from") is very localized in Detroit. In that sense, it is probably more "sociological" than anything else we've read so far--except perhaps The Book of Khalid, which alludes to the communal life of the Syrian quarter of Manhattan. Think of questions for Hayan regarding the social life of Arab immigrants in Detroit.

We also have the poems "The Pregnancy" and "Hamza Aweiwi, A Shoe Salesman in Hebron," which deal with the very personal and the very political respectively. What comparisons can you make to other writers we've studied to date?

Footnote: "Hamza Aweiwi" is about a cobbler in Hebron, a mostly Arab city in the West Bank that is also home to about 5,000 Jewish settlers and the Tomb of the Patriarchs. The poem seems to take place during the first Intifada in the late 1980s.