them on the street & shadow . , is one of being gripped by the shoulders and shaken awake; of having your eyelids pinned open and unable to blink. Much to admire here. Please try again. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. So who is “They”? It's the season of pain, but you're not alone. The speaker’s feeling of un-belonging continues even at home, as she comes of age without the guidance of a mother and father. I am four, sitting in a patch of grass "From the very first poem to the last one... self-love words will empower you to find inner strength, getup, crawl, walk and fly, and never give up.". ISSN 2577-9427.NOTE: Advertisements and sponsorships contribute to hosting costs. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window), Kid Lit Titles ‘Always Anjali’ & ‘Meet Yasmin’ Teach Without the Preach For the Win, Storyteller: Kalyani & The Voice From the Well, Original Poetry: Usman Ahmad’s ‘The Grave is our Sanctuary’, ‘Alchemy’ Explores Erotica From a South Asian Perspective, The Aerogram Book Club Discusses Akhil Sharma’s ‘Family Life’, Original Poetry: ‘An Archive of Consonants’ by Itisha Giri, Satire: An IYD Yoga Sequence to Embrace a Common Nationalist Heritage, Facing India’s Nightmare: Confronting India’s Occupation of Kashmir & The Hindu Right, Q&A With Kamil Ahsan — Editor of Barrelhouse Magazine’s Desi ‘Road Trips’ Issue. Line by Line Summary of IF – Stanza 1 . —, 1993: summer, in New York City The first Partition floored me in a very different way than White Lie floored me or My Love for Nature floored me. 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. a dance of strangers in my blood your little cousin pops gum & wears bras now: a stranger. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. That might come off as just this reviewer’s fancy way of an East versus West cliché, but this is a work less interested in political peacocking than it is in reclaiming the intimate, amidst the wash of history. In the same poem, the speaker’s 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 sister’s body betrays her with an ingrown hair that lands her in the hospital. these are my people & I find Aditya Desai lives in Baltimore, currently teaching writing and revising a couple novels that he keeps threatening to finish someday. single file towards the gigantic red lettering Please like/share the post if you found it useful. in my people’s image The poetry in Fatimah Asghar's debut collection, If They Come for Us, alternates between addressing the autobiographical and the historical: Asghar writes raw short poems exploring the individual and collective meanings of topics such as trauma, loss, solidarity, racialized violence, sexuality, diaspora, and … Some of these poems absolutely floored me. I want a strong sense of “my people,” built with solidarity at its heart. & the muslim man who sips Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2019. Speaking through the final girls of horror cinema, these poems confront issues of feminism, sexuality, violence, and healing in a post-"MeToo" world. if they come for you they But twist she does, and by doing so, opens herself to everything, from painful truths to the kindness of strangers. These poems return to the question of what “home” means, asking what it is to be in a body that doesn’t always feel like a safe place. Previous page of related Sponsored Products. The poem If can be viewed as a set of guidelines on how to live and act with integrity and right values such that one becomes the ideal human. Why not become a monthly subscriber? In course of the thirty two lines of the poem, Kipling advocates the virtues of composure, patience, integrity, modesty, control, perseverance, tolerance determination, confidence – for a few to cite. The poet also adds that we must not deal with lies or brew hatred in our hearts even if the ones around us are doing the same. That’s what I think that poetry and poems can add to the conversation around social justice — that moment of humanization and empathy, as well as a call for mobilization. A homeland, even one never seen, sticks in her blood; the trauma endured by her ancestors lives within her DNA. Risk Taking: The poem often showcases life as a gamble in which all our achievements might get washed away. Shall we lose all we have while trying to get ahead in life, we must not back down but muster enough will power and determination to start again from scratch. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 5, 2018. The cultural memory that lives in the speaker’s body is inescapable, but rather than run from it, she faces it boldly, writes it down, and shares it. Woven throughout are poems that peer inward, as Asghar explores another “Us,” — the queer, the non-binary, genders who have no clear border. This gives the form of the poem a sense of cohesion and order which is very much in keeping with the central idea of the poem which advocates an ordered and controlled lifestyle.