Poet To Watch: Fatimah Asghar

Poet to Watch: Fatimah Asghar is a poet of many places, voices, and intimacies that she effortlessly makes into a place her readers and listeners can call home.

She is a poet and performer. She is a member of the Dark Noise Collective and has been published in Drunken Boat, Solstice,Word Riot, Muzzle Magazine, DecomP, Fringe, and many others. In 2011 she created Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first Spoken Word Poetry group, REFLEKS, while on a Fulbright studying theater in post-genocidal countries and now serves as the Director of Community Arts for the Redmoon Theater in Chicago.

Listening and reading her work is like traveling across many worlds, all of which the poet believes and all in voices the poet knows are her own. Having an unique view of family, having lived her life as an orphan after her parents passed away while she was still young, Fatimah has made the page and stage her home and all of us who witness her work become her family. She cares deeply about what it means to be a woman and how the death of a young Chicago girl challenges what it means to be alive in a place that does not honor the living. In this video of her from The Nantucket Project shows how much Fatimah cares about everyone her pens transcribes.

Here are a few deeper look at Fatimah interrogating the misogyny of a guy who told her women are more beautiful when they do not think:

“my
body
moves
when
the
wind
(your
ocean)
tells
it.

what’s
it
feel
like?

to
be
hammered
down?

to
be
all
tree-leg
&
anchor?” ~ from the poem “Finally, the Jellyfish Speaks“

When it comes to being a woman and understanding that there is no shame in many things that people shame women for, she gives us a poem like “Red“. Here is an excerpt:

“Lover. I am not ashamed of the red
drip budding between my thighs.

Nor am I amused when you call it war
paint. Every woman dreams

of being a red-clad girl, dreams
it spread tight around our breasts.”

And of course Fatimah’s wisdom reaches love, describing the haunting name of an ex as a death sentence in her poem “He Who is Good With Swords“:

” His name is in my spit.
I cannot unswallow him.  He is on the

mouth of all the lovers whose lips I lick.
I always thought I would love a man

with the name of a god. I always pictured
a glorious death ––”

 We are made better, more human because of these poems and I look forward to experiencing more of her work in the future. Matter of fact, Fatimah is a finalist for YesYes Books’s “Vinyl 45 Chapbook contest” for her short collection “Rewind/Play” scheduled for release mid-next year. Stay up on the info here. Please sound off below on this amazing poet. Who else should we look into for a possible feature? Leave your suggestions below!

~Phillip

Glappitnova unites influencers and talent from different industries through storytelling, performances, classes, and events for one crazy 8 day experience in Chicago.The opinions expressed here by Glappitnova.com contributors are their own, not those of Glappitnova.com.

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Phillip Williams

Phillip B. Williams is the author of the forthcoming book of poetry Thief in the Interior (Alice James Books 2016). He is a recipient of several scholarships to Bread Loaf Writing Conference, a graduate of Cave Canem, and one of five winners of 2013’s Ruth Lilly Fellowship. Phillip received his MFA in Writing at Washington University in St. Louis and is currently the poetry editor of the online journal Vinyl Poetry.