pocket full of kash

Hello! My name is Kashifah, and I am a senior in high school who had the privilege of coming across your poem " En Route to Bangladesh, Another Crisis of Faith ." To be frank, poetry is not something I dip my toes in often save for school assignments, which is how I came across this poem. I find poetry's complexity daunting, its precisely chosen words frighteningly perfect. Yet, I felt a reflection of myself in your beautiful words. What first caught my attention was your selection of sensory details. They uncannily brought me back to this exact moment in my own life in 2016, when I was traveling to Bangladesh. I, too, remember sauntering through the Dubai airport with its thick summer air, past luxury displays of "silk scarves" and a seemingly unlimited assortment of "french fries" and fast food. I, too, remember being in a foreign country, yet still surrounded by other Bangladeshis making their way toward the same homeland. But as I ...

Songbird, Press your feet into the tree's bark when you are scared. The bark is warm, it is  worn, it is yours.    Yet morning comes. Is the branch now too narrow to bear your weight? Then go up through the green-blooded forest dappled in balmy sunlight — Your outstretched wings, quills against a boundless blue canvas.    Songbird, Above the ocean's shore you will see: The ocean's waves timidly fold back into themselves again and again — A comfortable pattern. Still, beneath their calm, a swelling new wave gathers.     Songbird, Stillness may curl around your mouth rich and nourishing as ripe fruit — Savor it too long and its sweetness may turn sour.   But songbird, I cannot tell you  whether to swallow or to fly. This poem was very much inspired by the concept of "nouvelle vague," or the French New Wave, which was a revolutionary 1950s film movement where filmmakers challenged norms of traditional filmmaking and editing. Filmmakers in t...