A conversation with Julie Otsuka
having grown up using utensils she will never understand the comfort it brings: someone forming little mounds of rice that are pushed by the thumb into your mouth
America swallowed my parents / spit out skeletons / Waleed became Bill / the Clintons stretched / their skinny vowels / over my father’s father’s father’s name
A new episode of AAWW Radio with guests Ather Zia, Hafsa Kanjwal, and Sameetah Agha
my eyes are closed / & i won’t lose my temper, want a world where my people aren’t background, refuse / to be an extra in someone else’s weekend again.
I grow up: I never learn / Chinese: I never go to China: we eat until our stomachs peached: we grow peaches on trees and they are moneyed: we bury / their hearts in the dirt: fullness is 貴 is: priceless:
do you know somewhere inside their language, lies something mine?
“I don’t think that writers choose their subjects. I think they choose us. I think they step out of history books, off the sidewalk, or from a near future, and they say, ‘Hey, fool, you’ll be writing this one!'”
The battle for safety and well-being in South Brooklyn’s Muslim American community
if I extradited myself from my body cleaved into infinite / particles you’d never step all over me at once
總有一次不想丟掉 / 太容易丟掉 || Don’t want to lose it this time / It’s too easy to lose
The questions of who can eat what, and where, and with whom, are facts of Malaysian life, negotiated daily and often subconsciously.
My friend uses words I know: / desert, rainfall, homeland. Speaks with / dead wet sea eyes of a house where her / grandfather found peace.
Unearth the map of storied constellations. / Vibe the unknown. Wager that fear is not our common dialect.
Salah satunya: mengumpulkan sandal dari seluruh Indonesia dan diberikan kepada si polisi. || One such action: collect sandals from all around Indonesia and give them to the police.
A collection of the six works of writing, translation, audio, and photography that nuzzle into different corners of this apparent insignificance
Q&A With Ramy Youssef about the Arab-Muslim
American experience
땀과 핏물과 진물이 뒤섞여 끈적한 그의 맨발이 젖어 번들거린다. || His bare feet, sticky with a mix of sweat and blood and ooze, glisten.
I dress devotedly. I devote my time to smoothing the knots in my hair. / I lace rum and cokes with devotion. My aloe vera plant sings devotion.
The slippers allowed her the pleasure of spatial recognition, an opportunity to go back in time and become the person cared for, rather than the one perpetually burdened with the responsibility of caring.
& if / you find yourself full of holes, the / way they beat fish at the markets, / think of the hands, damp & cherried / with rain, that once tore your mother / out of the house / she learned to dance in.
having grown up using utensils she will never understand the comfort it brings: someone forming little mounds of rice that are pushed by the thumb into your mouth
The questions of who can eat what, and where, and with whom, are facts of Malaysian life, negotiated daily and often subconsciously.
America swallowed my parents / spit out skeletons / Waleed became Bill / the Clintons stretched / their skinny vowels / over my father’s father’s father’s name
My friend uses words I know: / desert, rainfall, homeland. Speaks with / dead wet sea eyes of a house where her / grandfather found peace.
A new episode of AAWW Radio with guests Ather Zia, Hafsa Kanjwal, and Sameetah Agha
Unearth the map of storied constellations. / Vibe the unknown. Wager that fear is not our common dialect.
my eyes are closed / & i won’t lose my temper, want a world where my people aren’t background, refuse / to be an extra in someone else’s weekend again.
Salah satunya: mengumpulkan sandal dari seluruh Indonesia dan diberikan kepada si polisi. || One such action: collect sandals from all around Indonesia and give them to the police.
I grow up: I never learn / Chinese: I never go to China: we eat until our stomachs peached: we grow peaches on trees and they are moneyed: we bury / their hearts in the dirt: fullness is 貴 is: priceless:
A collection of the six works of writing, translation, audio, and photography that nuzzle into different corners of this apparent insignificance
do you know somewhere inside their language, lies something mine?
Q&A With Ramy Youssef about the Arab-Muslim
American experience
“I don’t think that writers choose their subjects. I think they choose us. I think they step out of history books, off the sidewalk, or from a near future, and they say, ‘Hey, fool, you’ll be writing this one!'”
땀과 핏물과 진물이 뒤섞여 끈적한 그의 맨발이 젖어 번들거린다. || His bare feet, sticky with a mix of sweat and blood and ooze, glisten.
The battle for safety and well-being in South Brooklyn’s Muslim American community
I dress devotedly. I devote my time to smoothing the knots in my hair. / I lace rum and cokes with devotion. My aloe vera plant sings devotion.
if I extradited myself from my body cleaved into infinite / particles you’d never step all over me at once
The slippers allowed her the pleasure of spatial recognition, an opportunity to go back in time and become the person cared for, rather than the one perpetually burdened with the responsibility of caring.
總有一次不想丟掉 / 太容易丟掉 || Don’t want to lose it this time / It’s too easy to lose
& if / you find yourself full of holes, the / way they beat fish at the markets, / think of the hands, damp & cherried / with rain, that once tore your mother / out of the house / she learned to dance in.