I was so blown away by this poet. So much to unpack in her poetry. Ancestral trauma at the cellular level, her own trauma from being othered, threatened and discriminated against, rape, body shaming by white culture and by certain aspects of religion, like in "Haram," one of my favorites:
"The day Auntie A saw my sister's pussy
hairs crawling out & around her underwear
so long that if you ripped through the tangles
you could part them into pigtails...
Your hairiness is against Allah's will
my Auntie scolded, the disappointment
lined on her too young face..."
A rite of passage, a marker of becoming an adult and gaining power, no longer a child, the facial hair, the underarm hair, the pubic hair that says "you can't treat me like a child anymore," a source of secret internal pride becomes a source of shame. Another step on the road to adulthood, reaching toward that perceived, illusional goal of agency over oneself: getting a driver's license or official state id. Then shamed under constructed ideology of what men and women should be, which is supported and accepted as "normal" worldwide.
"Boy," the acknowledgement that the whole being does not fit into these "genderized" boxes of should, oughts, and musts. Her internal boy who is feisty and wild but why are those little boy traits? Why does she and her "boy" stomp the jellyfish as if it is not something she would do on her own just to release the anger of the injustices done to her? As a response to the world she lives in?
"...when I smashed the jellyfish
into the sand & I grinned it down
to a pink useless pulp..."
Violence is not "lady-like" and nor is it a luxury of the female-bodied individual. "Sugar and spice and everything nice that's what little girls are made of, but boys are made of snakes and snails and puppy dog's tails" as the old rhyme goes. Is the only permission she can give to herself to express such anger attributed to the "boy" in her?
"...together
we watched it throb, open & close.
begging for wet. he was there."
The pronounced sexualness of the lines and the duality of the male/female that lives within her seems to be a reconciliation of the two parts of her: the one that is the brunt of violence, and the one who can act it out on the world, either in defense of or anger at the world around her. "Other Body," too speaks at the dream-like reconciliaton of the internal female/male but once again connects maleness to destruction:
"In my sex dreams a penis swings
between my legs, a pendulum clock
tower puncturing my days. I watch
myself destroy the bodies of others..."
Powerful poems like "National Geographic," "Partition" and "Ghareeb" speak of the long-lasting disorienting and damaging effects of colonialism that acts as a guillotine that separates body and soul.
So, so much to unpack and talk about. What a phenomenal work of art.
I can see you got swept into so many parts of this, Mel, and see lines that connect that others haven’t mentioned as much. It’s truly intersectional and lots to unpack too!
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Yes! Asghar's way of exploring intersecttionalities of the body in her text is fascinating. Her ability to speak about the different spectrum's of gender and sexuality brings to light a lot of the conversations I think we are trying to have but can never find the right words for it. It especially fascinated me that both of theses poems both had a form of "rite of passage" but it differing points of view. I think the duality of that is Asghars way of saying that the constructs of "rite of passage" are gendered and create binaries for everyone.
ReplyDeleteWow, I love your thoughts. I also think its interesting how her aunt demonized her and her sister's pubic hairs. She then used Allah to justify it being wrong. I thought that was interesting and eerily similar to what a lot of people do with religion. They use it to control and make people feel bad about themselves. You brought up good points about the poem "Boy"; this one was beautiful and sad all at once. The things we do or don't do should not be determined by our sex but it so often is. She attributes all of her "out of the norm" actions to the Boy inside of her instead of embracing all that she is.
ReplyDeleteAmazing and thoughtful response. You picked up on so many intense and beautiful nuances in the text!! I found it fascinating how Asghar dealt with her childhood, coming of age, sexuality etc. Her gender identity and also how oftentimes growing up is very sexually charged (like in the poem where she has her barbies have sex with each other), but that's often seen as taboo, and children are seen as innocent of these things. Like you said, there is so much to unpack. How her Auntie looks and her and her sister, how natural parts of bodies are seen as ungodly, how one's body and gender fit in or don't fit in to social norms. Figuring out where one fits in to one's religion. Being taught that some things are "wrong".
ReplyDeleteThank you for your response!!