Poetry Potluck II (ft. Fatimah Asghar & Vivek Shraya)

In Poetry Potluck 2, we have Vivek Shraya and Fatimah Asghar, who read from their poetry books I’m Afraid of Men and If They Come For Us.

In Vivek Shraya’s I’m Afraid of Men, she explores how masculinity was imposed on her as a boy and continues to haunt her as a girl, and contemplates how we might reimagine gender for the twenty-first century. Vanity Fair writes, “Vivek Shraya transforms her long-festering fears of men into cultural rocket fuel … Shraya’s dispatches from the frontlines of life as a queer, trans woman of color are frequently illuminating, painfully honest, and, in spite of everything, hopeful.”

If They Come For Us is Fatimah Asghar’s debut poetry collection, where she captures her experience as a Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America, exploring identity, inheritance, and healing. The Library Journal writes, “Her story sweeps wide, becoming the history of India, Partition, genocidal hatred, and timeless misogyny. In the telling, she moves freely in form.”