I have read parts of this book before, and that's where I started. I've seen Fatimah Asghar read her work from this book in a reading at my undergraduate institution. I always find myself stunned in the presence of her work.
The repetition is so heavy throughout this book. The repetition of "Partition" in both poem name and in subject matter, Asghar deals with displacement. The feeling of having to build a home out of cards just to have someone knock it over whenever they wish. The feeling of the home as replaceable. In the control of someone other than yourself.
"it takes a lot of work to remember we are nothing" (15).
This line resonates and echoes throughout and I am stilled. The work that is needed in order to minimize the personhood, the humanity from oneself. There's the constant "until". The displacement is the in-between space- she is refugee, an orphan girl-child of the survivors of partition and genocide, the displacement of her identities in the US (with post-9/11 racial calamity). She has lost her innocence, and knows the otherness in herself. She knows the sin of her girlhood and womanhood and existence in the world around her as a Muslim Brown Girl.
This book feels like a ripening. Like a fruit, or flower, or a sacred holy land- all of which Asghar creates foe herself, are blooming and ripening and ready to find a new version of home.
I love your idea of this book as a fruit or flower, it fills with the image on the front cover of the book as well! I also think this book is very refreshing and brings to light all the issues that some poets don't often write about. You're so lucky to have seen her read in person!
ReplyDeleteYes... as it is a ripening. I see that. I wonder though, if the narrative is exceptional or contained in more lives than these. Stuff to talk about! So good.
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