Seasonal Reads: If They Come for Us

It’s the start of the American holiday season. Thanksgiving has not yet clucked through with her brown turkeys and cold parades, but Santa Claus and his snowy, elfy goons have already overtaken every major store in the country. Thanksgiving deserves some respect, I think. At least from those of us who cherish seasonal breaks for the time they offer us away from anthologies and assigned texts. This Thanksgiving, instead of Anne Bradstreet classics and noble savage lore, I offer you tales of a different type of migration—Fatimah Asghar’s debut poetry collection, If They Come for Us. 

If They Come for Us is a skinny book of poetry wrapped in a warm purple jacket. It’s soft to the touch, and the pages glide as easily from finger to finger as Asghar’s words sew themselves into the soul. That’s the sappiest thing I’ll say about this book, at least for now. The blurb describes the work as a collection that “captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America,” and Asghar doesn’t hold back.

If you’re looking to cry, this book of poetry is for you. If you’re looking to laugh, this book is for you. If you’re looking to scream “I stan!” at the Beyoncé reference towards the end, this book. Is. For. You.  From the critical “100 Words on 45’s 100 Days” to the tender “A Starless Sky Is A Joy Too,” Fatimah Asghar displays her creative complexity and thoughtfulness with an experimentation and sincerity that woos again and again and again. 

Aesthetically and thematically, Asghar’s poetry is moving in it specificity. Throughout the book are seven poems titled “Partition,” which are all concerned with the “ethnic cleansings and retributive genocides that consumed South Asia during the India/Pakistan Partition.” Aside from those emotional juggernauts, there are poems about growth, gender, family and the lack of family—all illustrated with imagery that suggests some kind of sunshine in the darkness and complication of migration. 

If They Come for Us is perfect to read over Thanksgiving break. Read it as you smell turkey cooking in the kitchen, or chase cousins around backyards, or stay at school, or spend time with your chosen family.