I want to create a series of poems about all the different
places I’ve lived and that have constructed my identity. I’ve lived in Abu
Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, and now D.C, and as a Pakistani citizen would also
include Karachi in the list of places I would write about. Whereas all the
other places represent a certain time in my life – Abu Dhabi my early
childhood, for example – Karachi is a place I keep returning to so it could be
interesting to intersperse poems about Karachi between poems about other places
to show a kind of progression. I want to explore both how places can shape us
and how one’s identity can fragment across all these different places and
create a sense of confusion. In this collection, I would also like to experiment with different forms more than I have in the past.
This sounds like a fascinating project and I would love to see how this progresses! Will you be incorporating other writers' artworks, poems, pieces, etc. into your poems? Perhaps from the Arab American diaspora? How are you doing to figure "place" and "belonging" into your poems? What kinds of memories or material do you hope to use?
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