House to House: The Kitchens of the Creek | with Shamma Al Bastaki

Shamma Al Bastaki reflects on the food, memories and traditions of Dubai’s Creek communities through her poetry book House to House. For House to House, Shamma Al Bastaki went to the elders of the Creek communities, sat with them, and turned what they told her into poetry. Food is everywhere in what they remembered: salt crushed from a big rock, fried fish, loomi and spiced rice, cheese that wouldn't keep. This Q&A goes back to those kitchens: what people ate, how meals were shared, what Eid looked like in those houses, and how that life shaped the food Dubai eats now. Selma Abu Alia sits down with the poet to ask where the book began, how it was made, and what most people don't know about life around the Creek. Shamma Faisal Al Bastaki is a poet and writer from the United Arab Emirates. She holds an MA from Harvard University, where her poetry collection Al-Majaz: A Crossing received the CMES Best Thesis Prize, and a BA in Literature and Sociology & Public Policy from NYU Abu Dhabi, where she received the Gulf Capital-ADMAF Creativity Award for her poetry collection House to House: بيت لبيت (ELF Publishing, 2025). A Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship fellow and former Louvre AD Ambassador, her work has appeared in Asymptote Journal, Harvard Graduate Review, 421 Online, and Harper's Bazaar Arabia, among other platforms. She has been featured at the Venice Biennale, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, Seoul International Book Fair and Seoul Museum of Art, the Natural History Museum London, and has shared her poetry in cities globally. In her free time, she enjoys baking, hosting picnics, and ballet.