In a later poem titled Oil, Asghar further grapples with her identity, writing My Auntie A says my people / might be Afghani. Her work often celebrates her heritage, gender, and sexuality. With precise words, she expresses that the dirge, our hearts, pounds vicious, as we prepare / the white linen, ready to wrap our bodies. The conversation around death and the normalization of the ritual of burying bodies highlights just how routine violent oppression was in Peshawar during the partition. Blood is an unwieldy metaphor. "Oil" serves as the flimsy motivation for the invasion of Iraq, and also a stand-in for everything Asghar has lost as an orphan and as a brown girl during the War on Terror. Fatimah Asghar's poem, "If They Should Come for Us" is the title poem of the poet's debut full-length collection, If They Come for Us, published by One World/Random House in 2018. After the Orlando Shooting Juniper Cruz 65. How we master the forms we choose to write in and speak back to our own traditions is a personal choice, writes Momtaza Mehri in her critical defense of instagram poets like Rupi Kaur, who is often accused of commodifying trauma and her own marginalization as a brown woman. Fatimah Asghar these are my people & I find them on the street & shadow through any wild all wild my people my people a dance of strangers in my blood the old woman's sari dissolving to wind bindi a new moon on her forehead I claim her my kin & sew the star of her to my breast the toddler dangling from stroller hair a fountain of dandelion seed Fatimah Asghar is an artist who spans across different genres and themes. How would / you have taught me to be a woman? In 2011 she created a spoken word poetry group in Bosnia and Herzegovina called REFLEKS while serving a Fulbright fellowship, where she studied theater in post-genocidal countries. [12] It was not until she was in college that Asghar learned about how the Partition of India had deeply impacted her family. She has also had her writing featured on outlets like PBS, NPR, and Teen Vogue. And what is home if the place where you areboth in public and in privaterejects critical pieces of who you are? Yesterday meansI say goodbye, again.Kal means they are the same. Fatimah Asghar is a Pakistani, Kashmiri, Muslim American writer. She is also the writer and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated Brown Girls, a web series that highlights friendships between women of color. [7] "As an orphan, something I learned was that I could never take love for granted, so I would actively build it," she told HelloGiggles in 2018.[8]. In 2011, she created a spoken word collective in Bosnia and . I think we are at war! It is a deliberate rejection of a colonial logic, but its not always a successful gesture. Copyright 2010-2019, The Adroit Journal. I copy -catted from Frances who whispered it when the teachers got silent. Poetry Nov 2, 2015 3:34 PM EDT. watching my beloveds through Facetime the tens of tens of apps downloaded so I can hear the scattered voices of everyone I love & the silence of my apartment building so loud my whole world . Later in the poem, Asghar directly addresses death, stating, in all our family histories, one wrong / turn & then, death. Its estimated that 1-2 million people died and 75-100,000 women were abducted and raped in the ensuing months.) Kal means shesdancing at my wedding not-yet come. The expansion of the popular landscape of poetry, Love Letter to the Eve of the End of the World, Recycling Poetry in a Time of Climate Change. She edited The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, and her Collected Poems: 1974-2004 was published in 2016. ISSN 2577-9427.NOTE: Advertisements and sponsorships contribute to hosting costs. Asghars approach is similarly multimodal. revealed to be a white man writing under a Chinese womans name. As though I told you how the first time.Everyone always tries to theft, bring them back out the grave.Let them rest; my parents stay dead. I have no blood. Asghar told NBC News of her friendship with Woods. I learned that India had been split into two, with Hindus residing in Indian territories and Muslims living in Pakistan. Founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Smell is the Last Memory to Go by Fatimah Asghar recounts a story from Asghar's childhood, the memory connected intricately with the small of 'citrus & jasmine'. from the soil. They both died by the time she was five, leaving her an orphan. Asghar is a member of the Dark Noise Collective and a Kundiman Fellow. Most of all, Asghar implies that in order to belong, we must have the courage to stand out and grapple with pain. Her work has appeared in the New York Review of Books Daily, unbag, and the Ploughshares blog. That playfulness is central to the book, and appears through inventive formal choicesthere are poems written in the form of pop quizzes, film treatments, crossword clues, and bingo scorecards, in which each box contains a different example of casual racism, i.e. Copyright 2017 by Fatimah Asghar. Main Na Bhoolunga. She refers to herself, not unlovingly, as a boy-girl. Towards the center of the poem, that desire for a guiding maternal figure enters with the lines, Mother, where are you? [4] She received the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation in 2017,[5] and has been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Request Permissions. Give me my mother for no, other reason than I deserve her.If yesterday & tomorrow are the samepluck the flower of my mothers body. I draw a ship on the map. The kids at school ask me where Im from & I have no answer. [15], "Often, our friends joke that we are each others life partners, or 'real wifeys.'" Monroe's "Open Door" policy, set forth in Volume I of the magazine, remains the most succinct statement of Poetry's mission: to print the best poetry written today, regardless of style, genre, or approach. It is a paean to her familyblood and notwho she turns to steadily, out of the past and into a shared future: weve survived the long / years yet to come I see you map / my sky the light your lantern long / ahead & I follow I follow.. just in case, I hear her say. Fatimah Asghar is an award-winning poet, whose widespread collection of poetry, If They Come for Us, has created her international fame. Poems covered in the Educational Syllabus. In 2017, she was a recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and listed on Forbess 30 under 30 list. These poems return to the question of what home means, asking what it is to be in a body that doesnt always feel like a safe place. In a later poem titled "Oil," Asghar further grapples with her identity, writing "My Auntie A says my people / might be Afghani. She has received fellowships and support from Kundiman, Kweli Journal, and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. The cultural memory is lodged in the speaker like a knifeone that she may not be able to remove, but one that she could choose not to twist. Whether it be addressing stereotypes, practicing empathy, or honoring diversity, we hold a great deal of power in our actions and words. I whisper it to my sheets. again, his legs slammingconcrete, my chest heavingwhen we ran from cops, the night they busted the river partyagain when I smashed the jellyfishinto the sand & grinded it down. Kal meansshes holding my unborn babyin her arms, helping me pick a name. what do I do with the boywho snuck his way insideme on my childhood playground? Poem Solutions Limited International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct,London, EC1A 2BN, United Kingdom, Discover and learn about the greatest poetry ever straight to your inbox, Discover and learn about the greatest poetry, straight to your inbox. In the same poem, the speakers sister defies Islamic law by shaving her arms, and Asghar writes in response, Haram, I hissed, but too wanted to be bare / armed & smooth, skin gentle & worthy / of touch. That is, until the sisters body betrays her with an ingrown hair that lands her in the hospital. Our Mothers Fed Us Well Yasmin Belkhyr 70. I want Evanescence slowly. Every single person that visits Poem Analysis has helped contribute, so thank you for your support. Sometimes, English needs to be broken, according to poet Fatimah Asghar. The basic rules for writing a ghazal seem straightforward five to 15 couplets, one word repeated at the end of each stanza but transporting this seventh-century Arabian form into a 21st-century American lyric is no mean trick. In each of the books seven Partition poems, Asghar traces its legacy, but she also considers the metaphorical and physical partitions of her life. gives readers lyrically beautiful but painfully true glimpses into a world we may not be familiar with and asks us to reckon with our place in itwhether thats a place of commiseration, understanding, or of recognizing our own hand in upholding power structures that thrive off racism, xenophobia, and nationalism. Danez, Franny, and Safia talk unraveling shame, opening the door to a queer Muslim literary community, caesuras and Its Toaster Time! I collect words where I find them. As though I told you how the first time. The forced migration of over 14 million peopleof Muslims to Pakistan and Hindus to Indiatore both families and land apart. Rehman offers a new kind of fairy tale, surreal yet rooted in harsh, ugly modern realities. to a pink useless pulp. "WWE by Fatimah Asghar - Poems | Academy of American Poets", "Dark Noise: Fatimah Asghar, Franny Choi, Nate Marshall, Aaron Samuels, Danez Smith & Jamila Woods", "Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships", "30 Under 30 2018: Hollywood & Entertainment", "For poet Fatimah Asghar, the word 'orphan' has more than one meaning", "How Fatimah Asghar turned the traumas of colonialism and diaspora into poetry", "Fatimah Asghar '11 on the Emmy-Nominated Webseries Recently Acquired by HBO | Mellon Mays Fellowship", "How They Got There: Sam Bailey & Fatimah Asghar, Creators of Brown Girls", "Fatimah Asghar's first collection of poetry, If They Come for Us, is a warning about the consequences of ignoring history", "5 Canadians nominated for first Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for women and non-binary writers, worth $150,000 (U.S.)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fatimah_Asghar&oldid=1143884663, This page was last edited on 10 March 2023, at 14:06. Freedom Bar Asnia Asim 71. Home is the first grave. It is a wonder that anything was left of the road. Fatimah Asghar is a contemporary poet and filmmaker. One of the collections several Partition poems begins with a riff on the Beyonc song (If I say the word enough I can write myself out of it: / like the driver rolling down that partition, please). Ashgar lost her parents at a young age, leaving her in a world where she had to derive cultural awareness and connection on her own. Coming out of the vibrant Chicago poetry scene where she made a name for herself as a slam poet, her writing is as informed by slams overt linking of the personal with the political, as it is by formal experimentation and lyricism (she cites Douglas Kearney and Terrance Hayes as influences). In an unofficial manifesto, their Call for Necessary Craft and Practice, Dark Noise urges writers and artists to join them in a shared creative practice that is anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and refuses to turn away from the unjust political times we find ourselves in. The document recognizes the poet as someone whose work is inevitably tied to power and profit. , is one of being gripped by the shoulders and shaken awake; of having your eyelids pinned open and unable to blink. Fatimah Asghar is a South Asian American poet and screenwriter. But, as Rebecca Solnit writes,blood is what mixes things up. Its defining quality is that it circulates. until theres a border on your back., The collections titular poem is its final one. Jamila gets me through everything. Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038, my people I follow you like constellations. Her newest book "When We Were Sisters" was published October 2022 and was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction 2022. Fatimah Asghar is the author of the poetry collection If They Come for Us (One World/Random House, 2018) and the chapbook After (Yes Yes Books, 2015). Fatimah Asghar is a Pakistani-Kashmiri-American poet and screenwriter and the author of If They Come for Us., https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/magazine/poem-howd-your-parents-die-again.html. She is a touring poet and performer. Sign up for the Asian American Writers' Workshop Newsletter: Asian American Writers Workshop Franny and Danez talk with Pat about the fertile soil of solitude, falling in love Raych Jackson swings through the VS studio to talk her win at NUPIC (The National Poetry Individual Competition), the brilliant kidlets in the third grade class she teaches, and remixing Safia Elhillo is a goshdarn timespace-suspending poet. Her work is well-regarded in all circles and has been included in Poetry Magazine and other famous publications. All rights reserved. In essence, the speakers world is as dissected and limiting as the Bingo board. I look up & make sure no one heard. Examples include both visual and verbal instances, like the first square, which reads, White girl wearing a bindi at music festival, and another on the bottom row where an unnamed speaker says, I love hanging out with your family. Theres noplace to see them again. It is a call for a poetics that combats those relationships: We reject attitudes that view the lives of marginalized and terrorized people as profit, as click-bait, as tickets to fame, as anything but people deserving of better.. The beesdiscarded wing, glazed into honey. Poetry Originally published in Poetry (March, 2017). Every nonhuman living thing is held captive by our actions. 2017 Poetry Foundation Kal. youre kashmiri until they burn your home, she writes in the first Partition poem, delineating the ways bodies and identities are at the whim of the shifting logic of borders. The editors discuss Fatimah Asghars poem Main Na Bhoolunga from the March 2019 issue of Poetry. I buried it under a casket of scribbles / All of the people I could be are dangerous / The blood clotting, oil in my veins. With the tragic destruction of the Twin Towers during 9/11, Asghar returns to a place of discomfort and hesitancy of her originsquestioning whether she could carry her cultural heritage with pride or trauma in a grieving, post-9/11 America that views individuals like her with fear and distrust. Multiple poems, all titled Partition, navigate not only the literal and historical meaning of the Partition, but also the divisions of the home, of gender, familyand, at times, how those divisions might be reconciled, if possible. What is home if its a place youve never been to and cant touch? Orphaned as a child and marginalized in America, Asghar captures the plight of alienation on a personal and political scale. Tomorrow means I might. John talks about his new book Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry, learning how to focus Pat Frazier is the National Youth Poet Laureate of these here United States, and alone. In Microaggression Bingo, her words, much like her personal and cultural identities, are carefully divided and fitted in the structured tiles of a bingo board, with the central free space square reading Dont Leave Your House For A Day - Safe. The surrounding tiles are filled with chilling statements and memories such as Casting Call to audition for a battered Hijabi Woman and Editor recommends you add more white people to your story to be more relatable. The poem illustrates the limited space and movements the speaker is able to take as a Pakistani-Muslim subject to microaggressions in America, a land that pledges to be rooted in diversity. In the poem Microaggression Bingo, Asghar uses the physical image of a bingo board to highlight the frequency of those microaggressions the speaker faces on a daily basis. How has climate change changed the way we write poetry? It is largely written in lower case, with the . This data is anonymized, and will not be used for marketing purposes. out on the map. Kal means shes oiling my hairbefore the first day of school. Im a silent girl, a rig ready to blow. Her uncle described how the family was forced to leave Kashmir for Lahore and told her about the impact of being refugees in a new land affected them. Threads of embodying courage in the face of danger are woven into the anthology, building on Asghars initial juxtaposition of death and resilience in For Peshawar'' and Gazebo. Asghar, who has a fierce reputation of wielding words packed with sharpness and intelligence, likewise challenges the conventional practices of writing poetry. Partition, the 1947 cleaving of British-ruled India into three separate countries, India, Pakistan, and now-Bangladesh, serves as the central trauma of the collection. The poem is composed of free unrhymed verse in a single stanza. The poem begins with the 2014 terrorist attack on The Army Public School in Peshawar, forcing Ashghar to question whether we are meant to lower [our babies] into the ground / from the moment they are born. Asghars tone is pensive as she grapples with the notion of something as brutal and wrongful as death proximate to young individuals who have yet to understand what it means to be threatened. Subsequent poems choreograph Asghars dynamic reconciliation and continued battles between her cultural identity, sexuality, and position in America. But, through these inheritances, there is also care and comfort, sweetness and love, that provide structure to our identities, bodies, and imaginations: For the fire my people my people / the long years weve survived the long / years yet to come I see you map / my sky the light your lantern long / ahead & I follow I follow., The Nassau Literary Review5534 Frist CenterPrinceton, NJ 08544. on visits back your english sticks to everything. With familial roots still deeply tied to Pakistan and the divided territory of Kashmir, Asghar, a queer Muslim teenager living in a post-9/11 America, was left to navigate not only the partition of India and Pakistan, but likewise the numerous boundaries entangled in her identity and painted on her body. Learn about the charties we donate to. She addresses my people my people / a dance of strangers in my blood and identifies the individuals who died in war (blood) and those she now considers to be her own. If They Come For Us gives readers lyrically beautiful but painfully true glimpses into a world we may not be familiar with and asks us to reckon with our place in itwhether thats a place of commiseration, understanding, or of recognizing our own hand in upholding power structures that thrive off racism, xenophobia, and nationalism. And yet, even when were told some of these memories and experiences are not the the speakers, they still are, somehow. These poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it . The experience of reading Fatimah Asghar's debut book of poems, If They Come For Us, is one of being gripped by the shoulders and shaken awake; of having your eyelids pinned open and unable to blink. . The Poetry Foundation recognizes the power of words to transform lives. Can't blame me for taking a good idea. Her work has been featured on news outlets such as PBS, NPR,Time,Teen Vogue,Huffington Post, and others. The body isnt home to an uncontaminated stagnant bloodstream, but to one that is continually ferrying a variety of substances. Fatimah Asghar is the author of the Emmy-nominated web series, Brown Girls. Mercedes Zapata. Fatimah Asghar is the author of the full-length collection If They Come For Us (Random House, 2018) and the chapbook After (YesYes Books, 2015). Snake Oil, Snake Bite Dilruba Ahmed 73 Her work is well-regarded in all circles and has been included in Poetry Magazine and other famous publications. But with this understanding, Asghars compact yet clear prose also reminds audiences that, although pain exists in our world, we must reckon with our role in creating a more just community. Asghars book is many things: defiant, subversive, grief-stricken, angrybut its also full of things like bravery, friendship, family, and love. Her work often celebrates her heritage, gender, and sexuality. Anyone can read what you share. her knees fold on the rundown mattress, a prayer to WWEHer tasbeeh & TV: the only things she puts before her husband. These sly, adept poems work through circumstances under threat with audacity, humor, and wonder. I collect words where I find them. She covers bruises & never lets us eat leftovers: a good wife.Its something in their nature: what america does to men. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier and Good Fossil Fuels, Two scholars exchange letters on poetry and climate. She has also had her writing featured on outlets like PBS, NPR, and Teen Vogue. This battle with death, which Asghar and her family face in both Peshawar and America, is then slowly reconciled in a later poem entitled Gazebo, a piece which details the building of a safe space, in which Asghar writes, We had too many funerals to waste / flowers. In For Peshawar, Asghar introduces readers to the seemingly comfortable rhetoric around death and the regularity of losing loved ones amidst injustice. Happy new year yall! The two main characters are a queer Pakistani-American writer and an African-American musician and are played by Nabila Hossain and Sonia Denis respectively. In high school, I briefly learned about this partition from a twenty-minute lecture complemented by a single paragraph in my World History textbook. For poet Fatimah Asghar, the word 'orphan' has more than one meaning. Asghar continues to elaborate on this community, writing my people my people I cant be lost / when I see you my compass is brown & gold & blood / my compass a Muslim teenager / snapback & hightops gracing the subway platform, further stressing how she is able to lean on those who have sacrificed for herthose who have been and continue to be there for her. First day of school and Teen Vogue in America Solnit writes, blood is what mixes up. Of losing loved ones amidst injustice have no answer lecture complemented by a single stanza, and will be... Losing loved ones amidst injustice by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted verse. With audacity, humor, and Teen Vogue Kundiman Fellow even when were some... Writing under a Chinese womans name New kind of fairy tale, surreal yet rooted in,... Support from Kundiman, Kweli Journal, and the Ploughshares blog is if... 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