When hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons came across her piece entitled " First Writing Since " , a poem describing her reaction to the September 11 attacks , he signed her to a deal with HBO 's Def Poetry Jam . She recited original works on tour for the following two years . In 2008 , she was cast in her first fiction role in cinema , the Palestinian film '' Salt of this Sea '' ( 2008 ) by Annemarie Jacir , which premiered as an official selection in the Un Certain Regard competition of the Cannes Film Festival . She is now working on her third publication which will be a book of prose . She took part in the Bush Theatre 's 2011 project '' Sixty Six Books '' , for which she wrote a piece based upon the Book of Haggai in the King James Bible
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Suheir Hammad