86th Street Stories

we’re all a bullet before we become a memory https://www.instagram.com/p/BqooIWzH9BM6Ex0LVq2MowGndUGAzpn9QDHQC00/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=p951t3fhx1av

#throwback to another reading last week at @sakhinyc’s Survivors, Storytelling & the Healing Power of Art. A massive shoutout to Farzana for conducting such a sensitive panel with such grace and empathy ❤️ #healing #metoo #southasianart (at Y29 Studio) https://www.instagram.com/p/BphbxXiH9DH/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=hwkggme2xlt

Ten days before Xulhaz Bhai’s murder, I was in the AJ+ office (where I was working for the month), presenting on my journalism in Bangladesh. When I brought up my reporting on the LGBT community’s activism, they were surprised; they wondered if it was safe and/or how they could be so open in a Muslim majority “conservative” country. I told them no, the community had its struggles but was thriving, growing, shining. Because it was. In just two years, there’d been the launch of Roopban (the country’s first gay magazine), the launch of Dhee (first gay Muslim female comic character), the pride parade. The road ahead was long, but there was a road. And people were out. In ten days, all of that changed. It was my last day at the office and I completed my fellowship instead writing about the fear that silenced Dhaka following the killing. The panic, the silence, that dead space where suddenly there was no language left. I’ve since read my poem “Love Letters From Dead Sons”, a tribute to Xulhaz Mannan, at many readings. Last night was the first time I got to read it at a panel specifically on the LGBT movement in Bangladesh; and in front of panelists who have been involved with Roopban from day one. And it finally felt like it was at the right place, like there was language. A lot has changed since 2016. Dhaka doesn’t feel home anymore, just a strange wounded memory. But once in a while, at an event like this or the adda that follows where we reminisce about the city that once was, I feel hope. I feel home. So thank you for having me. It was an honor (tho Rasel would hate that word). (at University of CT-Stamford) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpXQ3-RHtr_/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=y38v6cugt3ab

on the ferry that day, so many people became two. I wondered later how I could end up mourning something so...ordinary. but we don’t get to decide the darkness we embrace, the dark chooses us. we don’t get to choose the stories we mourn, the story chooses us. (at Staten Island Manhattan Ferry) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo1ovKyHsWi/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=5bezdxvemtkk

we can’t be a part of all history, but we can be a part of how it’s remembered. @benabodena & I at tonight’s WWI Poetry & Prose night, part of the #NationalBookMonth. I read Love Letters From Dead Sons, a tribute to slain journalist Xulhaz Mannan, but tonight I remembered #JamalKhashoggi and #ViktoriaMarinova as well. Rest in power✊🏽 Thanks @thinkinginfullcolor for bringing us together and Hudson County Community College for hosting. (at The Apple Tree House) https://www.instagram.com/p/BovOgm-HAgS/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=rorz0itb3axh

It’s been an emotionally taxing week for journalists everywhere, definitely for journalists who have even a semblance of fear re: their government coming after them. This weekend, Jennifer and I attended the #sajaawards2018, where our work was nominated for awards! It was an honor to be there but we were the ONLY two Bangladeshis there — at an event geared specifically towards the South Asian community. The minority within a minority myth is REAL and we need more Bangladeshi voices out there. At the end of the event, I was chatting with the Vice President of SAJA who herself said, “Please run for the board. We NEED more people beyond the India/Pakistan I circle.” Do you see where the problem is? There is room for us — it’s upto us to go claim that space. It’s not an easy time to be a journalist, definitely not a journalist reporting on Bangladesh (another common theme this weekend, the number of non-Bangladeshi ppl who seemed aware of the stifling press freedom in the country), but that’s probably all the more reason we need more Bangladeshi voices out there. So, if you’re wondering if your sorry matters or not, chances are - it does (even if it doesn’t, email me we’ll make it into a poem). But join us, claim this space, there’s more room for us than we were taught to believe. I promise. Thanks SAJA for an amazing evening, panelists, and stories! #southasianjournalists #southasianwomenwriters #bangladeshijournos (at National Press Club) https://www.instagram.com/p/Borg4W3HklK/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=bz32k7cih7mh

Last weekend, at Songs Of Resistance fundraiser for @raicestexas, I painted the Atlantic Across Your Face, ranted about How (Not) to Love A Woman With An Accent, and lost my umbrella (still 💔 about that). Maybe love will still win, maybe it really is the ultimate resistance✊🏽 Thanks @anita.rojascarroll for organizing this! 📷: @anabauuu (at Starr Bar) https://www.instagram.com/p/BoMuyQXH7cM/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=14zxf65ejrznl

Somedays this city takes more than it gives. Some other days, it only takes. Forgets your name. Forgets the water we drowned in to be here. Says, not here, not today. Come back later. Doesn’t realize later means another train ticket. Doesn’t remember its people don’t have enough anothertraintickets. Doesn’t know how to tell you it’s never been whole, wonders why you are even here? How can you want to make home in a place that lets go of its people like rainwater? (at New York, New York)

My nosepin slipped off halfway and I had too many questions but I just moderated a panel “Tearing Down The Walls” on immigrant artists and immigrant policies with community organizers in the art space, lawyers, and artists themselves. “People are not water,” - actor Daniel Kahn on how we talk about refugees as “waves” and “floods.” “People are containers and the world they bring to you on their back is going to change where you live - for the better.” Thanks @immigrantarts for the invite. #immigrantartist #immigrantart #immigrantsnyc (at Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust) https://www.instagram.com/p/BmJOpRoFNwI/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1jh1ibrn7zlwc

Dhaka is so far today. All I can do send love, light, strength. Power to the children on the streets, power to their mothers counting every breath for them to come home. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl_fbLeFMuG/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=rcqwjw0k0fkw

We have lots of pics of us working hard and asking important questions from the training sessions, but nothing symbolizes our work better than the boldness of the mountains and the colors in this picture. Wrapping up our week of #maynard200 fellowship for journalists of color. Where else to do it but in beautiful Boulder where I keep unlearning my boundaries. #maynard200fellow #journosofcolor #writersofcolor (at Chataqua Colorado Hiking)

BEYOND HONORED to be reading at the NYC POETRY FESTIVAL next Saturday! That too next to poets I look up to so much. Thanks @benabodena for making this space 💛 The event is FREE but I’m giving you a week’s notice TO SHOW UP to Governor’s Island next weekend. Event link in bio👆🏽 #nycpoetryfestival @nycpofest #nycpoetry #poetryreading

Reading my poem “This City As A Death Sentence” — an ode to the immigrants who disappear from the map of this city, the unremembered, the unmourned. Thanks @nyfacurrent hosting! #immigrantartists #nycimmigrants #nycartist #nycpoetry #immigrantart (at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts)

Poetry workshop & July 4 fireworks by the ocean. Life, somedays✨ (at Rockaway Beach, 95 Street)

Another ruling, another day of uprising. As one of the speakers said “No one with this kind of hatred can win.” And how can they, when the people are here, ready to show up? Every time. A glimpse from the walk to Lady Liberty. Thankful today for this city, the people, the humans. (at Foley Square)

Spent the weekend completely disconnected (my kinda heaven) in the Catskills, waking up in the woods, writing poetry amid trees and the rain, AND ALPACAS 💚 Thanks @groundshift.us for holding the space for some much-needed conversation and reflections✨ #arrivings (at Camp Hilltop)

“The skies descended on Manhattan today and the city doesn’t know how to love back so she casts her shadows on the Hudson instead. It makes me wonder how scary it must be to be so high up, and give everything to not cower. I wanted to kiss you the way the clouds hung above the Manhattan skyline today, devouring it with all they have, diving in to its entirety, holding sacred in their palms a skyline that refuses to flinch even, but eventually gives in anyway; there is poetry in the way Manhattan bends when the clouds come for her, so many stories slipping through her building bricks and streetside lamps, and these storeys and stories have been generations in the making but today they all belong to the clouds, because somedays, this city, goddamn.” . . . . . . #manhattanfog #nyc #nycpoetry #nycskyline #rainynyc #manhattan #manhattanskyline (at Lincoln Tunnel)