Program Note

These three poems come from the poet Maram al-Masri’s collection Le Rapt (The Abduction, originally in Arabic & French). They are reflections on joys and pains of motherhood. In these settings, I aim to capture the tone of these poems, which are at once deeply sentimental, yet also “everyday.” This task made it one of the most challenging and rewarding projects I’ve done. The work was commissioned by and for Dana Varga, and I am so grateful to Dana for her collaboration and to Maram for trusting me with her work.