Suheir Hammad was born in 1973 in Amman, Jordan. Her family immigrated to the United States in 1979 and settled in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. She started writing poetry as a teenager, often drawing from her family's history and her own experiences as a Palestinian Muslim woman in New York City. Her poetry collections Born Palestinian, Born Black and Drops of This Story were both published in 1996. She gained addition recognition with her poem "First Writing Since," which was centered around the September 11 Terrorist Attack in 2001, performing it for the pilot for the Peabody award-winning HBO show Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry and in the Tony award-winning Broadway play Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway. She published additional collections of her poetry called ZaatarDiva in 2006 and Breaking Poems in 2008, as well as an updated version of Born Palestinian, Born Black in 2010. Her work has also been featured in various anthologies, magazines, plays, and films.