If They Come For Us
by Fatimah Asghar
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Fatimah Asghar, a nationally touring poet, screenwriter, educator and performer, we are honored to share your work with our HocTok community. Thank you! Given the many roles and titles you have earned, we have to ask if you feel like your life is split in clear cut compartments at specific time intervals or do you see yourself as an artistic soul who translates reality to connect with various audiences everywhere? I’m an artist first, who worked in many different mediums. I like to hold to that. I don’t really love the way that we cling to genre so hard to define ourselves. In my best moments, I’m an artist who is porous enough to allow for a lot of different kind of expressions. Your most recent work is your book of poetry If They Come For Us. What series of events inspired you to write this body of work? My childhood and the 1947 Partition when Colonial Britain left South Asia and the area devolved into retributive genocides and ethnic-based violence. It’s a thing we don’t talk about a lot but that has severely affected South Asian people and the world, so I got pretty obsessed with it when I first heard about it. What were the intended range of feelings you tried to transmit through the range of poems in this book? There were a lot of different feelings: isolation, anger, hurt, confusion, love. |
photo by Cassidy Kristiansen |
What are the borders you wish to break through your work in poetry, writing, and education?
I hate borders in general. I hate the way that we rigidly define so many things—identity, gender, nationality. I wish to create art that breaks the mold in how we think about those things, that offers nuanced ideas of humanity, and that actively argues for and creates solidarity among people of color.
I hate borders in general. I hate the way that we rigidly define so many things—identity, gender, nationality. I wish to create art that breaks the mold in how we think about those things, that offers nuanced ideas of humanity, and that actively argues for and creates solidarity among people of color.
If They Come For Us
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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 at the bakery I claim them too the sikh uncle at the airport who apologizes for the pat down the muslim man who abandons his car at the traffic light drops to his knees at the call of the azan & the muslim man who sips good whiskey at the start of maghrib the lone khala at the park pairing her kurta with crocs my people my people I can’t be lost when I see you my compass is brown & gold & blood my compass a muslim teenager snapback & high-tops gracing the subway platform mashallah I claim them all my country is made in my people’s image if they come for you they come for me too in the dead of winter a flock of aunties step out on the sand their dupattas turn to ocean a colony of uncles grind their palms & a thousand jasmines bell the air my people I follow you like constellations we hear the glass smashing the street & the nights opening their dark our names this country’s wood for the fire my people my people the long years we’ve survived the long years yet to come I see you map my sky the light your lantern long ahead & I follow I follow Source: Poetry (March 2017) |
As a woman, as an Asian American poet/writer/educator, do you see any confinements that seem more difficult than others?
When you come from marginalized backgrounds there’s a way that the power-holding group doesn’t see you as a full human. You’re often reduced to a stereotype or an approximation of what they think it means to be a ‘woman’ or ‘Asian-American’.
I think one of the most painful things that we can do to each other is to erase folk’s history. So many times I feel like people don’t think of people of color and immigrants in the context of their families and peoples’ history. That’s a kind of violence, I think.
What has been your attitude towards any obstacles you have faced so far?
To breathe through it and focus on my work.
How do you prefer to keep informed: arts, traveling, news, social media or is it a mélange of everything mentioned above and more?
I read the news, I go on social media (though sometimes I have a love-hate relationship with it because it can both be a beautiful space and a toxic space), I like to travel when I can.
You travel around the country engaged in poetry readings. What makes it easier for you to break the ice with a new audience in a different city from week to week?
I try to make my performances feel engaging with the audience, like a conversation. The closest I can get to being like myself when I’m performing, the best I feel.
Can you share with us a specific moment that you have found very touching when interacting with readers of your work?
A few times in the last few readings I’ve done people have come up to me with handwritten notes and affirmations for me. I find that really beautiful. It’s their way of saying, your work has touched me and I hope the universe gives you joy. It means a lot to me when folks do that.
Do you see poetry as keeping tabs with the beats of our times or if not that, what is the role that poetry plays in today’s world?
Poetry has always played a role in the world. Art is never devoid of the world. Poetry and art’s place in the world is dictated by the writer/ creator of said art and poetry. What they hope their work does, and their intention.
When you come from marginalized backgrounds there’s a way that the power-holding group doesn’t see you as a full human. You’re often reduced to a stereotype or an approximation of what they think it means to be a ‘woman’ or ‘Asian-American’.
I think one of the most painful things that we can do to each other is to erase folk’s history. So many times I feel like people don’t think of people of color and immigrants in the context of their families and peoples’ history. That’s a kind of violence, I think.
What has been your attitude towards any obstacles you have faced so far?
To breathe through it and focus on my work.
How do you prefer to keep informed: arts, traveling, news, social media or is it a mélange of everything mentioned above and more?
I read the news, I go on social media (though sometimes I have a love-hate relationship with it because it can both be a beautiful space and a toxic space), I like to travel when I can.
You travel around the country engaged in poetry readings. What makes it easier for you to break the ice with a new audience in a different city from week to week?
I try to make my performances feel engaging with the audience, like a conversation. The closest I can get to being like myself when I’m performing, the best I feel.
Can you share with us a specific moment that you have found very touching when interacting with readers of your work?
A few times in the last few readings I’ve done people have come up to me with handwritten notes and affirmations for me. I find that really beautiful. It’s their way of saying, your work has touched me and I hope the universe gives you joy. It means a lot to me when folks do that.
Do you see poetry as keeping tabs with the beats of our times or if not that, what is the role that poetry plays in today’s world?
Poetry has always played a role in the world. Art is never devoid of the world. Poetry and art’s place in the world is dictated by the writer/ creator of said art and poetry. What they hope their work does, and their intention.