Lisa Luxx
Lisa Luxx is a British Syrian writer, performer and activist trying to shake the west out of its slumber. She writes for the freedoms of Self, of reality, of body, of community, of revolt.
Published by Tate Britain, New River Press, The International Times, Tribe de Mama (US), The Numinous (US), i-D, The Sunday Times and more. Celebrated in the press for her “revolutionary writing” from BBC Arts through to Well + Good NYC. In 2015 she was named one of the top 4 queer poets to look out for by Diva magazine.
In 2017 she released a collection of poems and essays called The 4th Brain, which follows the journey of a millennial searching for connection. It speaks of revolution, evolution and sisterhood. Published by Prowl House Books and illustrated by Elizabeth Clough, curator of London’s Red Door Studios.
She is founder of post-net magazine Prowl, and its parent company Prowl House. Which ran as a hub for radical artists and a platform for unheard narratives within independent art.
Shortlisted for Peace Poetry Prize and Saboteur Awards Best Spoken Word Performer. She now lives in Yorkshire and gets more northern by the day.
“Lisa Luxx is phenomenal, a poet of guts and heart, she is alive with fire and truth. Her poetry always makes me wish people would wake up, for it is a fact listening to her I’m reminded how much we’ve all been sleeping. These are the songs we sing when we are brave, when we have our eyes open, this work will be remembered long after we are all gone.” – Salena Godden
The Civil War
She wears untold stories
Like a brace across her teeth
Boldly walking to a new identity
Leaving footstep trails so others may see
But the rulers of history hover behind her
And sweep.
Thick hair in a bun
She wears at the front of her head
A dyke quiff, she quips
And tattoos the double Venus
Onto her neck.
If you didn’t know, now you do
If you didn’t know, do I need to tell you?
On a Wednesday morning she goes to town
Slips an eye-liner, from Superdrug,
And lipstick down
The sleeve of her coat.
A dark, blood-shed Arabia red
Licks her lips
Like flames singeing cloth on the dead.
She writes across her eyelids
In the black inky pen
Don’t assume I’m white
Because I look like you
Privileged by face
But you haven’t a clue
How many bombs go off in the holes of her skin
When she’s quiet outside,
There’s civil war within.
The furnace of our ancestry is constantly burning inside
Sending smoke signals from the pit of our stomach
To the glint in our eyes.
Some people were born to be weapons
They had no choice but to join the fight.
She was a loaded double barrel shot gun
Shooting bent into the tide of white.
Her ancestors speak to her, at night
While Aleppo pine trees morph
Into the pines and wheeze of a new Holocaust.
She hears whispers in her ear
Her role is to be a mother, they say, and so….
She digs a hole in her small garden
While the neighbours watch
In it she lowers the lover she is
So she can become the bearer she was not
Her hair comes down, aside her face
And she sways into the night
Pure breed elites smite her people
And so she must create new life.
She undresses into a chalk outline
To climb into the bed
Of a Syrian man
Writing untold stories across his chest.
The future of our country,
Waits between your legs
To counter the silence that raised her
She gives birth to noise instead.