Dear Tarfia Faizullah,

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 reflect on my experience a decade later, I feel your poem also articulates a sense of shame that I struggled to understand growing up. I suppose it's one thing to feel shame in America, while surrounded by individuals who fit Western ideals of normalcy and beauty, who aren't ridiculed for the number of melanin molecules they possess. Yet your poem captures an entirely different feeling, perhaps one I had been too timid to confront, which is a shame that can arise even when you are among your own people.

This is why your ending lines of "because I am / an American, a star / of blood on the surface of muscle" particularly caught my attention. When I read this, I imagined the word "surface" as if American identity were something imposed over one's cultural heritage, but I wonder what your true intention was in including this line. Is inheriting American identity and Western values something that alters how we perceive even our own communities?

I am also curious about your writing process while composing this. Was it difficult to write about this kind of internalized shame, especially in such a blunt way? I also wonder whether this poem came from a particular personal experience of yours, or maybe a critique of a greater phenomenon among people in the Bangladeshi diaspora.

And of course, thank you for writing such a powerful poem that has inspired me to reflect on a feeling I haven't fully addressed before. Your work has helped me realize how much depth can be achieved through poetry, even while describing seemingly mundane moments. Even if that moment is licking every grain of salt off your fingers after eating fries, which, for the record, I have most certainly done. ☺︎

Sincerely,
Kashifah Hossain

now listening: "Dola De Re" by Mila and Fuad (my favorite Bangladeshi song I grew up with!)