Born in Amman, Jordan, to Palestinian refugee parents, Suheir Hammad immigrated with her family to Brooklyn, New York, as a young child. She was a cast member of the Tony Award-winning Broadway production Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam, which opened in 2002. Her poetry collections include Born Palestinian, Born Black (Harlem River Press, 1996), Drops of This Story (Harlem River Press, 1996), ZaatarDiva (Cypher Books, 2006), and Breaking Poems (Cypher Books, 2008), which received a 2009 American Book Award. Her poem First Writing Since, written in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks, was widely circulated. She received the Audre Lorde Writing Award from Hunter College.
