Leila Chatti

Biography

Leila Chatti is a Tunisian American poet and author of the chapbook Tunsiya/Amrikiya (Bull City, 2018). The recipient of fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Fine Arts Work Center, and the Tin House Writers’ Workshop, her poems appear in Ploughshares, Tin House, New England Review, Narrative, the Rumpus, and elsewhere.

See Work

POETRY / Summer 2017

Mother

By Leila Chatti

If you had asked me, thirteen, what I wanted
to be one day, I wouldn’t have said it.

POETRY / Summer 2017

When I Tell My Father I Might Begin to Pray Again

By Leila Chatti

He says he’s never really stopped
speaking to God. Says it’s in his DNA, asking
for things.

POETRY / Summer 2017

Storm

By Leila Chatti

The summer after, a storm
split the sky over Hergla and I wanted to be in it.

POETRY / Summer 2017

Menorrhagia

By Leila Chatti

Christmas, flew home packaged like a gift. Beneath my jeans a childlike padding. Came to adore the wee god, his dolorous mother.

POETRY / Summer 2017

Mubtadiyah

By Leila Chatti

Hidden in a dim stall as the muezzin called
all worshipers to prayer, I touched privately
the indelible stain.