Interview with Fatimah Asghar

Fatimah Asghar is a writer, performer, and photography who currently serves as a member of the teaching artist core for Young Chicago Authors. Her chapbook Medusa, They Would Sing is forthcoming with YesYes Books this fall, and her work has appeared in Word Riot, The Margins, Drunken Boat, and other publications. In 2011, on a Fulbright scholarship studying theater in post-genocidal countries, Asghar created Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first Spoken Word Poetry group, REFLEKS. She is also a member of the Dark Noise Collective and a Kundiman Fellow.

Find out more on Asghar's website and read our interview with her below:

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Q: You went to Bosnia-Herzegovina as a Fulbright scholar and ended up forming the first spoken word collective there, REFLEKS. Can you speak to us a little bit about the process?

When I went to Bosnia I felt as though everyone I met was a storyteller. The whole country was bursting with stories. However, a lot of people that I spoke to felt like ‘art’ or ‘poetry’ was not something that they could do, due to the elitist connotations around those words. So, I partnered with a Bosnian-American poet and we created the first bi-lingual spoken word poetry group there. We saw a need and tried to create a safe space for people to express themselves.

Q: You were also studying theater at the time. What’s the intersection of poetry and theater for you?

I’m a performer and a poet, so there are a lot of natural intersections for me in thinking about language and performance. Language is very much alive to me, in the same way that theater to me is broader than just a stage, but something we see and do every day, in all of our interactions. I love the flexibility with poetry and the way that the page can be a kind of performance as well.

Q: How was the Dark Noise collective formed? What would you like to see it become?

Dark Noise was another thing that was born out of a need. When I was in Bosnia, my friend, Aaron Samuels, and I g-chatted every day. We talked about how it was difficult and demoralizing to negotiate the professional writer world as a poet of color. Dark Noise was (and is) and experiment. We wanted to assemble a bunch of amazing emerging writers of color together and fellowship. We wanted to create a group that operated like a family, with love at it its center, and see what happened.

As cheesy as it sounds, I just want us to always be there for each other. I can’t imagine my life without Aaron, Franny, Jamila, Nate and Danez. I want us to survive this racist ass world. I want us to grow old together. I want us to be in the same nursing home when we are all in our 90s, eating jello, talking shit, reminiscing on our freakier days and writing poems. That’s what I want.

Q: What do you think should be written about more?

I don’t know if I think something should be written about more or not. I do think, that I wish I saw more writers who were orphans. Or Muslim. Or South Asian. Or queer. Sometimes, I feel so lonely. I wish I could reach out and touch someone like me.

Q: One of your poems that’s been getting a lot of attention lately has been “Pluto Shits on the Universe”. Can you speak to the inspiration for that work?

The inspiration is the epigraph. Literally it was thinking about how Pluto was demoted because it was ‘chaotic,’ because it defied the rules humans made to control it.

Q: How do you think poetry interacts with the political landscape today?

I think poems are urgent. I think poems are necessary. I think there is too much shit happening in the world to turn a blind eye to political events and pretend that poems and art are above politics. Poems can save lives, they can change the way we see the world and the way we define ourselves. I’ve seen poems read at marches and rallies as a way to mobilize. I’ve seen poems read at funerals. Poems read at weddings. Poems passed between lovers. Poems that remind us we can be free. Poems that make us want to love harder, to be better, that give us courage to fight.

Q: If you could change anything about how poetry is taught in schools, what would you change?

Get rid of the tired shit, bring the voices that students want to hear. There is too much good and urgent and alive writing for anyone in this world to say ‘oh, I don’t like poetry’ or ‘I don’t get it’ or ‘it doesn’t vibe with me’. Trust me, I am SURE there is a writer I can point to that you might like. I love doing that, with my kids. Testing out different poems and seeing which ones blow their minds.

Q: What inspired you to become a writer?

Jonathan Safran Foer and Harry Potter. I read Everything is Illuminated and lost my shit. I didn’t know a book could make you feel that much. I read Harry Potter religiously. I started writing Harry Potter fan-fiction off of the series, and that’s how I began writing. I loved that series, how words could architect a whole new world. I wanted so badly to be a part of it. But, there was no sex. You are trying to tell me that a bunch of teenagers are in a school together and no one was knockin’ boots? So my 13 year-old little nasty-ass self started writing about the naughty things that happened in the Room of Requirement.

Q: What are you working on right now?

I just want to be a better writer. I’m reading all I can and writing as much as I can. Right now it’s not for a project or a book or anything. I’m just excavating. I’m just trying to be better. Be more disciplined. Every month I look at the work I’ve created and try to answer: what did I learn? How did I improve? What do I see happening in my work?

I have a chapbook called After that is coming off of YesYes Books in the fall, and then I am also working on a self-love photography project for people of color called ‘Let Me Love Me’.

Q: If you could say anything to a group of students, what would you tell them?

Fuck everyone else.

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