M. Jasiah M, For Everyone

For Everyone

Jasiah M.

I drew this picture because one of the poems in the book by Jason Reynolds really spoke to me and it stood out to me. This picture represents a person who is following their dreams. Knowing that it takes time for them to really come true, this is why I put the person on the line with the bike because it takes time to get across. As you can also see he is also catching the stars as if he is almost catching his dreams.

From a co-creator of the Emmy-nominated web series Brown Girls comes an imaginative, soulful debut poetry that collection captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America. Orphaned as a child, Fatimah Asghar grapples with coming of age and navigating questions of sexuality and race without the guidance of a mother or father. These poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while also exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests itself in our relationships. In experimental forms and language both lyrical and raw, Asghar seamlessly braids together marginalized people’s histories with her own understanding of identity, place, and belonging.