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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Tarfia Faizullah. She is the author of two poetry collections, REGISTERS OF ILLUMINATED VILLAGES (Graywolf, 2018) and SEAM (SIU, 2014). Tarfia\\u2019s writing appears widely in the U.S. and abroad in the Daily Star, Hindu Business Line, BuzzFeed, PBS News Hour, Huffington Post, Poetry Magazine, Ms. Magazine, the Academy of American Poets, Oxford American, the New Republic, the Nation, Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket, 2019), and has been displayed at the Smithsonian, the Rubin Museum of Art, and elsewhere. Tarfia\\u2019s writing is translated into Bengali, Persian, Chinese, and Tamil, and is part of the theater production Birangona: Women of War. Tarfia\\u2019s collaborations include photographers, producers, composers, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists, resulting in several interdisciplinary projects, including an EP, Eat More Mango. Source

This episode includes a reading of her poem, \\u201cSelf-Portrait as Slinky\\u201d, featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.

\\u201cSelf-Portrait as Slinky\\u201d

It\\u2019s true I wanted

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0to be beautiful before

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0authentic. Say the word

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 exotic. Say minority\\u2014

\\xa0

a coiled, dark curl

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 a finger might wrap

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0itself in\\u2014the long

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 staircase, and I was

\\xa0

the momentum

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0of metal springs

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0descending down

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 and down,

a tension

\\xa0

\\u2014the long staircase,

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 and I was a stacked series

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0of spheres finger-tipped

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0again into motion\\u2014say

\\xa0

taut, like a child

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 who must please

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 the elders and doesn\\u2019t

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0know how, a curl pulled

\\xa0

thin. I wanted to be

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 a reckoning, to tornado

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0into each day\\u2019s hard

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0hands, that wanton

\\xa0

lurching forward

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 in the dark, another

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 soaked black ringlet,

\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 that sudden halting

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