Page, Pen, and Power
Adam Mhal
Instructor’s Introduction
In WR 120: Living Writers’ Now, students have the opportunity to engage with the writers whose work we have studied and written about in our class. For the final assignment, students fully assume their power as a “living writer now,” composing their own creative work, rooted in a lived experience, in a genre of their choosing. Reflecting on the semester’s exploration of how form meets content, students choose their genre by considering the rhetorical situation, aiming to tell their embodied experience in such a way that it could not have been told in any other form.
Adam Mhal’s Page, Pen, and Power accomplishes just this, transporting the reader to his childhood as an Arabic speaker attending school and learning to read, write, and speak English as a second language. The young speaker shares, “…English had no prayers/ only rules/ and red pens/ and erasers worn thin.” Inspired by the poems from January Gill O’Neil’s Glitter Road, Adam uses compact language to transform his lived experience into vivid imagery, crystalizing his former confusion into profound insight for the reader. As Mhal writes in his artist’s statement, these poem “celebrate bilingual and bicultural identity,” teaching the reader how the chaos of transition can give way to something beautifully integrated.”
Carroll Beauvais
From the Writer
When I was given a project where I had to turn a personal experience into a narrative, the first idea that occurred to me was my own experience of transferring from an Arabic school to a public school where everyone spoke English. This period of my life reshaped my identity and taught me how to enter unfamiliar spaces while maintaining my roots. I chose to present this narrative through poetry since I needed to encompass the richness of that journey in a concise and emotional format. One of the biggest challenges that I faced was how to relate my own experience to other bilingual speakers. I struggled with how much Arabic to include and whether or not to translate it. Ultimately, I found a balance where the presence of Arabic added authenticity, while the emotions that were embedded in the experience helped to make the poems universally applicable. Iʼm proud that the final work bridges my individual story with a broader narrative of adaptation and identity.
Pen, Page, and Power
Artist Statement:
When I began this project, I knew I wanted to tell the story of my transition from a private Arabic school in the U.S. to an English-dominant public school. It was an experience that reshaped my identity, leaving me to navigate unfamiliar academic and social spaces while embracing my past. Choosing poetry as my medium felt right, especially after reading Glitter Road by January Gill O’Neil. Her collection’s ability to transform powerful emotions into compact, vivid imagery inspired me. Poetry seemed uniquely suited to portraying the confusion and eventual clarity of my experience. However, the decision had its challenges, and the process of crafting these poems forced me to confront aspects of my story I hadn’t fully considered.
The poems—Reading, Writing, and Speaking—each focus on a specific aspect of my adjustment. I chose these themes because they represent more than just academic skills; they are foundational ways we connect with the world. Through my struggles with reading English, transitioning from Arabic’s right-to-left script, I tried to symbolize a broader cultural disorientation. Writing, with its rigid rules, mirrored my attempts to adapt to unfamiliar structures. Speaking, where I initially felt voiceless, became a testament to the bridges I built between two languages and two identities.
One of my greatest challenges was deciding how to integrate Arabic into the poems. Arabic is integral to my identity and the story I wanted to tell, but I wasn’t sure how much to include or whether to translate it. Initially, I used too little Arabic, worrying that non-Arabic-speaking readers might feel alienated. But as I revised, I realized that including Arabic words—even untranslated ones—added more authenticity to the story I tried to tell. I also realized that the Arabic itself didn’t matter, just the concept of a foreign language could give many bilingual speakers something to relate to. For example, in Speaking, the phrase عليكم السالم (As-salamu alaykum) represents the warmth and comfort of my linguistic roots. Transliterating just enough to provide context, as in Reading with “حكايات (hikayat),” struck a balance that allowed me to honor my heritage while keeping the work accessible to an English-speaking audience.
Another challenge was expressing the chaotic emotions I felt during that transition from an Arabic-dominant school to an English-dominant public school. At the time, I couldn’t articulate the frustration of reversing my reading direction, the awkwardness of unlearning my natural flow in writing, or the vulnerability of speaking with hesitation. Poetry, however, gave me the tools to convey these emotions through imagery. For instance, in Reading, I described the stories as “curled like smoke,” capturing both their fleeting familiarity and the disorientation of starting “at the wrong edge.” In Writing, I likened English letters to “pebbles,” contrasting them with the flowing water-like grace of Arabic script. These images allowed me to relive and reinterpret those moments in a way that felt true to my experience.
Revising my poems was a turning point in this process. Initially, my drafts were stiff, weighed down by my uncertainty about how to shape the narrative. But as I worked, I found that stripping away excess detail made the emotions sharper and more direct. I also experimented with rhythm and line breaks to mimic the natural flow—or lack thereof—of the experiences I was describing. For instance, in Speaking, the uneven pacing of the lines mirrors the hesitations and breakthroughs I felt as I learned to navigate English conversations.
Ultimately, I believe poetry was the best medium for telling this story. It allowed me to focus on the subtleties of my experience—small moments like tracing a backward letter or whispering “ك (kaf)” as a prayer for flexibility. These details might have been lost in a more expansive format, but in poetry, they become the focal point. The conciseness of the medium
also reflects the fragmented nature of memory, capturing my transition as a series of vivid snapshots rather than a continuous narrative.
Looking back, I judge the success of this project by how well it bridges my personal experience with a universal message of adaptation. The poems are not just about my story but about the broader struggles of anyone finding their footing in a new world. By weaving Arabic and English together, they celebrate bilingual and bicultural identity. The process of writing them has deepened my understanding of that identity, showing me how the chaos of transition can give way to something beautifully integrated. In sharing Reading, Writing, and Speaking, I hope my audience feels the weight of those moments and the triumph of finding balance. For me, this project was not just an exercise in storytelling but a recollection of a journey that shaped who I am today.
Page, Pen, and Power
Poem 1:
Reading
In the beginning,
the stories curled like smoke,
words unraveling from right to left,
حكايات (hikayat) whispered in ink,
each page, a steady rhythm I knew by heart.
But here, they flipped the world,
dragged my eyes to the wrong edge—
“Start here,” they said,
their fingers pointing
to the end of my sentence.
I fought against their order,
dragging my gaze back,
searching for familiar comfort,
for a حكاية (hikaya) that made sense.
But the stories stayed stubborn,
waiting for me to meet them halfway.
And slowly, I did,
letting my eyes trace
the jagged path,
until meaning unfolded its arms
and welcomed me home.
—
Poem 2:
Writing
My hands betrayed me in this new world,
fingers curling into shapes they didn’t know.
The letters clumsy,
ج (jeem) tumbling from my grasp,
my pencil looping backwards,
in the wrong direction.
“Try again,” the teacher said,
her voice gentle but firm.
I nodded,
and in my mind,
I whispered: ك (kaf),
a prayer to the flexibility
that had always been mine.
But English had no prayers,
only rules
and red lines
and erasers worn thin.
Each stroke a battle
to tame a script
that didn’t flow like water,
but clattered like pebbles.
Still, I traced and erased,
curved and crossed,
until the paper
bore my will
like a stubborn canvas
learning to hold a new shade.
—
Poem 3:
Speaking
It wasn’t my first time speaking,
but it felt heavy
like a lump of raw clay
on my tongue,
its shape foreign.
I knew how to speak,
of course I did—
but my words were soft,
folded in the comfort of what my family spoke, عليكم السالم (As-salamu alaykum),
the syllables stretching
like warm dough.
Here, their words were sharp, snapping like twigs
beneath my feet.
I stumbled,
my voice a quiet echo
in a noisy room.
But then I found a bridge: ًشكرا (shukran) found “thank you,” سالم (salaam) found “hello.” I strung them together
like beads on a necklace, my voice growing steady, then sure.
And one day,
I spoke,
not as a stranger,
but as myself—
both languages woven
into a single,
beautiful thread.
Adam Mhal is a freshman studying computer engineering and an upcoming software engineering intern at Verizon. He enjoys reading books and trying out new recipes to cook in his free time. Adam would like to thank his professor, Carroll Beauvais, for guiding him through this project and his friends for introducing him to the world of poetry, which has allowed him to explore his experiences in new and meaningful ways.