When Rivka reached out to me to do a profile on Fatimah Asghar, I could not have been more excited to interview someone whose work has affected me so much personally. 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 I learned that India had been split into two, with Hindus residing in Indian territories and Muslims living in Pakistan. In high school, I briefly learned about this partition from a twenty-minute lecture complemented by a single paragraph in my World History textbook. Does it matter how? Poetry We would like to collect information during your visit to help us better understand site use. Can't blame me for taking a good idea. Asghars book is many things: defiant, subversive, grief-stricken, angrybut its also full of things like bravery, friendship, family, and love. Yasmin Adele Majeed is the editorial coordinator for the Asian American Writers Workshop. 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. Its estimated that 1-2 million people died and 75-100,000 women were abducted and raped in the ensuing months.) The poet and winner of the Restless Books New Immigrant Writing Prize on supporting DRUM and the work of Guyanese poet Martin Carter, copyright 2023 Asian American Writers' Workshop, she cites Douglas Kearney and Terrance Hayes as influences, their Call for Necessary Craft and Practice,. 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). 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. Fatimah Asghar redefines poetry in her full-length debut collection, If They Come for Us, which interweaves free verse and innovative forms as she explores what it means to be orphan, to be immigrant, to be human. from the soil. She is a touring poet and performer. revealed to be a white man writing under a Chinese womans name. His "coven" of children the eldest, Noreen, followed by Kausar and Aisha is plummeted into orphanhood and watches his funeral on VHS. This data is anonymized, and will not be used for marketing purposes. In the opening pages of Fatimah Asghar's When We Were Sisters, an immigrant father leaves home to get bunk beds for his three children and is murdered in the street. Fatimah Asghar is a contemporary poet and filmmaker. Smell Is the Last Memory to Go Fatimah Asghar 60. just in case, I hear her say. In these poems, Asghar invites us to stare into the wound andhopefullylearn from it. Amid the hurt and darkness that exists in this world, Asghars poems prove that hope is out there, if only we have the courage to look for it. Shes seen me at my worst, at my best, at my most insecure everything. But twist she does, and by doing so, opens herself to everything, from painful truths to the kindness of strangers. All the people I could be are dangerous. Play is critical in the development of their work, as is intentionally building relationship and . By Fatimah Asghar. Im a silent girl, a rig ready to blow. he was there toothe day on Bens couch, wearingmy skirt, ranking the girls, in class. I copy -catted from Frances who whispered it when the teachers got silent. 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. togetherwe watched it throb, open & closebegging for wet. Stop living in a soap opera yells her husband, freshfrom work, demanding his dinner: american. In Schizophrene, Kapil tackles the problem of representation by writing towards lacunae. This could be someone they know or a direct reference to the traditional Greek muses. The Poetry Foundation recognizes the power of words to transform lives. my father: sideburns down the length of his face my age now & ripe my age now & alive his husky voice's crackle like the night's wind through corn fields of bell-bottoms fields of pomade my mother's overlarge sunglasses crowded on her face crowded in the only . III Hajj. 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. Fatimah Asghar is an award-winning poet, whose widespread collection of poetry, If They Come for Us, has created her international fame. Violence. Moments like this appear frequently throughout the anthology, wherein Asghar notes how the atrocities of her familys past trickle into her present identity. like whenthat man held me down & we said no. Her father was from Pakistan. You know its true & try to help, but what can you do?You, little Fatimah, who still worships him? 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. Back of the throatto teeth. Learn about the charties we donate to. 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. "I felt a palpable difference. In her debut poetry collection, If They Come For Us, Fatimah Asghar has a poem titled Oil that is really about blood, and that recognizes the significance of its fluidity. Thank you for your support. Her newest book "When We Were Sisters" was published October 2022 and was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction 2022. After great pain. an edible flower In Oil, she recalls losing her parents as a child and going to elementary school during the beginning of the War on Terror: Two hours after the towers fell I crossed the ship I whisper it to my sheets. The expansion of the popular landscape of poetry leaves more room for writing that isnt limited to representation, and for a readership outside of the white gaze. | Only the air was heavy and moist, like the breath of an enormous, mysterious beast. Raye was a finalist for the 2018 Keene Prize for Literature and received honorable mentions for poetry from both Southern Humanities Reviews Witness Poetry Prize (2014) and AWPs Intro Journals Project (2015). She motions readers like myself towards a more compassionate understanding of history which has been narrated by vagueness beyond a 300-word synopsis that tries to encapsulate an intricately layered pastand a realization that violence can live through generations. the day other kids shovedmy body into dirt & christened mehe appeared, boy, wicked, feral, swallowing my stride.the boy who grows my beard& slaps my face when I wax, my mustache. I have no blood. A collection of poems, prose, and audio and video recordings that explore Islamic culture. If the speaker, who comes from a lineage of heartache and violence, and who lives through her own kinds of violence, can still look at this country that has failed every immigrant to enter its harbor and find kindness in the cracks, how can we not too have hope for a better, more inclusive, kinder future? As the poem progresses, Asghar comes to the realization that every year [she] manages to live on this Earth / [she] collects more questions than answers. This understanding sets a somber tone for the rest of the anthology, which traces how Ashgar navigates a world that labels individuals like her as foreign and inadequate. Neither human sympathy nor natures bounty can fill the void left by her parents early deaths; the ferocious melancholy of that single-word refrain circles their absence as if to say: There is no escaping a loss this large only endurance. Orphaned as a girl, Fatimah Asghar grapples with coming of age and navigating questions of sexuality and race without the guidance of a mother or father. Co-creator and writer for the Emmy-nominated webseries Brown Girls, their work has appeared in Poetry,[1] Gulf Coast, BuzzFeed Reader, The Margins, The Offing, Academy of American Poets,[2] and other publications. Ive never been to my daddys grave.My ache: two jet fuels ruining the suns set play. , is one of being gripped by the shoulders and shaken awake; of having your eyelids pinned open and unable to blink. The death impacts a trio of siblings at the . Home is the first grave. "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. The Woman in the White Chador Farnaz Fatemi 61. And yet, even when were told some of these memories and experiences are not the the speakers, they still are, somehow. my country is made / in my peoples image / if they come for you they / come for me too, she writes. these are my people & I findthem on the street & shadowthrough any wild all wildmy people my peoplea dance of strangers in my bloodthe old womans sari dissolving to windbindi a new moon on her foreheadI claim her my kin & sewthe star of her to my breastthe toddler dangling from strollerhair a fountain of dandelion seedat the bakery I claim them toothe Sikh uncle at the airportwho apologizes for the patdown the Muslim man who abandonshis car at the traffic light dropsto his knees at the call of the Azan& the Muslim man who drinksgood whiskey at the start of maghribthe lone khala at the parkpairing her kurta with crocsmy people my people I cant be lostwhen I see you my compassis brown & gold & bloodmy compass a Muslim teenagersnapback & high-tops gracingthe subway platformMashallah I claim them allmy country is madein my peoples imageif they come for you theycome for me too in the deadof winter a flock ofaunties step out on the sandtheir dupattas turn to oceana colony of uncles grind their palms& a thousand jasmines bell the airmy people I follow you like constellationswe hear glass smashing the street& the nights opening darkour names this countrys woodfor the fire my people my peoplethe long years weve survived the longyears yet to come I see you mapmy sky the light your lantern longahead & I follow I follow. If They Come For Us is a navigation of home and family, religion and sexuality, history and love. In America, the place that is ostensibly home, the speaker faces that rejection both in her family life and in society at large. 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. Asghars book opens with invocations of history. 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.. Freedom Bar Asnia Asim 71. Everyone always tries to theft, bring them back out the grave. The city of Peshawar, which is mentioned in other poems, refers to a region that had become dangerous for Muslims to reside in during the India-Pakistan partition. 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). Like many territorial disputes, the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, an ethnically diverse Himalayan region known for its natural beauty, was rooted in religion. She is also the writer and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated Brown Girls, a web series that highlights friendships between women of color. Epigraphs from Korean-American poet Suji Kwock Kim and Rajinder Singh, a survivor of the India/Pakistan Partition, and an explanation of the Partition prepare us for the painful, but necessary, poems to come. Two jet fuels ruining the suns set play series that highlights friendships between of! 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