Artist in Exile: Fatimah Asghar’s “Daughter of the Mountains: Poems of Heartbreak and Homecoming”

Photo Credit: Ciera Dunbar. Photo Courtesy: Penguin Random House.

In an interview with The Adroit Journal, Jazz Poetry 2023 poet and author of the collection If They Come For Us, Fatimah Asghar, shared a glimpse into the ache in their heart: “The best imaginary museum I’ve never visited would be a museum dedicated to my parents and my family, in Kashmir. I’m an orphan, and my family was forced to migrate from Kashmir during the Partition of India, which led to the subsequent creation of Pakistan. I’ve always longed to know more about my family, my culture, and my parents. I’d love a place, one single place, where I could walk in and gain all that knowledge.”

Fatimah’s sophomore collection, Daughter of the Mountains: Poems of Heartbreak and Homecoming, navigates the reality that tears them away from this imaginary museum, and how they have learned to survive and build something new in its wake. In it, Fatimah unweaves residual grief and reckons with their relationship to Allah, to long-estranged but deeply loved kin, to the landscape of their ancestors, and to love itself. The result is a tender, searching collection of meditative poems that grapples with multiple facets of fulfillment and breaks open notions of faith to ask how an alienated daughter can find love and a home in the world.

With wisps of humor, imagery that is as beautiful as it is startling, and powerfully disruptive formal invention, this is an intimately lyrical and explosive collection from one of the most compelling voices of our time.

You can purchase a copy of Fatimah’s book, Daughter of the Mountains, at City of Asylum Bookstore.

About the Author:

Fatimah Asghar, author of If They Come for Us, is a poet, filmmaker, educator, and performer. They are the writer and co-creator of Brown Girls, an Emmy-nominated web series that highlights friendships between women of color. They were also a co-producer on Ms. Marvel for Disney + and wrote the episode “Time And Again.” Along with Safia Elhillo, they are the editor of Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology that celebrates Muslim writers who are also women, queer, gender-nonconforming, and/or trans.

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant, Cucina Alfabeto, is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but there will be a public reception with complimentary hors d’oeuvres and drinks following the program.