Final Project: Bodies of Water

I have been writing poetry for a few years now and have wanted to put together a book for some time. So for the final project, I decided to create a poetry chapbook and Bodies of Water was born.

The title of this chapbook came about when I stumbled upon a quote by Margaret Atwood. "Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient... If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does." This quote from The Penelopiad speaks of women as water and how soft but diligent and determined they can be. 

As a South-Asian Muslim female, I relay in this book my experiences and observations of growing up in a desi environment as well as an immigrant in America. Loss speaks of the hijab and islamophobic harassment while Bones addresses the issue of skinny shaming. Then pieces such as Obhiman and The Country in my Mouth mourns the neglect of one's mother tongue. 

I remember being in high school and just beginning to grown an interest in poetry but couldn't understand them. I couldn't relate to any poems or find anything that represented me. It is only recently that I've started to see a rise in poetry written by women of color, which is absolutely refreshing. Teaching my mother how to give birth by Warsan Shire and milk and honey by Rupi Kaur are just two books that I've read and connected with. As these poets have done, I want to reach out to young girls and women of the South Asian community and give them a voice. Right now, this chapbook is only a mock-up of the real thing. My goal is to one day publish the real thing and also create a literary zine for women of color (starting with a page on tumblr).

So far, I've advertised Bodies of Water on my tumblr, instagram and facebook. I'm going to look into online literary magazines and other publishing places to submit more of my works. I used Microsoft Word and Adobe Indesign to create the chapbook and Adobe Illustrator to design the cover image.
To read this chapbook, click here!
Click to hear my reading of Loss and Bones. 

EDIT: I've taken out the word 'wannabe' out of the about me page in the book and added my email address. Also, I've attached the audio files heard during the class presentation in this post.