by Trianne Harabedian
It is rare and beautiful to find a book that is simply about people. A book that presents a life, that delves deeply into the pain of one person, that shows intimately the struggles of a particular family. It is even more rare to find a book that takes all of these elements and places them within a controversial context. Such a book is not passive. But instead of shoving you into political action, it leads you to take the first steps toward compassion on your own. Fatimah Asghar’s If They Come For Us is one of these books.
If They Come For Us is a collection of poems that tell the story of a young Pakistani Muslim woman who has grown up in America. Orphaned as a child, the speaker lives with her aunt and uncle. Her life is a very American mix of cultures, where she plays with Beanie Babies, eats badam, runs track, and reads the Qur’an. By day, she attends public school and tries to fit in with her blonde classmates. By night, she is told her family’s history of Partition and running from violence. Mixed with all of this are the growing up stories of every woman.
Rather than forcing the entire book to conform to one style, Asghar allows each poem to take a form that reflects its subject. “Kal,” a gentle and dreamy poem about the speaker’s mother, takes a more traditional free verse form with three-line stanzas and proper punctuation. “How We Left: Film Treatment” tells the story of the speaker’s family running from violence as if it were being adapted for film, with sections labeled “Character Breakdown” and “Working Title”. “Shadi,” told from the perspective of women who were abducted and forced to marry their captures during Partition, is a poem of scattered words and phrases that reflect instability and grief. There are even a few poems that mix playful form with a serious subject, like “Microaggression Bingo” and “Script for Child Services: A Floor Plan.” Weaving everything together are seven poems titled “Partition.” Each uniquely approaches the violent division of British India, telling stories from a historical lens, from a modern perspective, or both.
This book took a few days to read. Not because the form is strange or the words overly complicated, but because the subject matter is painful. The speaker is alone, both physically and emotionally, for most of her life. She deeply appreciates the family and friends that she does have, but there is a parental and cultural void. The feeling of not being understood in the United States is intensified toward the middle of the book, when the event that forever changes the American view of Muslims occurs–9/11. Suddenly, the speaker must analyze everything she does in fear of being identified with the terrorists. She becomes anxious when schoolmates ask her where she is from, and does not use the trendy phrase “that’s the bomb.”
It can be easiest to see life through our own lens. To only think about the way the War on Terror has changed our own routines. But one of the most beautiful functions of books is that they bring us into other people’s lives. And through lovely, honest, heartbreaking poetry, by telling the story of one person, If They Come For Us has given me another perspective.
Comments are closed.