Brown girls’ anthem
A Golden Shovel after ‘Call Me by Your Name’ by André Aciman
We die so many deaths before we turn twenty. We,
the schoolyard Kardashians. We sew our stories, rip
them out as the schoolbus pulls up at our door. We out
cast our vile tongues so the aunties won’t. Scrape it so
they won’t know where to look for nipped buds. So much
is lost in undoing shame. Before we learned glory, we talked of
our love lives to walls. History didn’t erase us. We managed ourselves.
‘Brown girls’ anthem’ was the third-prize winner in 2019’s Golden Shovel challenge on Young Poets Network (YPN), judged by Peter Kahn
Fathima Zahra is an Indian poet and performer based in London. She is a Barbican Young Poet and Roundhouse Poetry Collective alum. Her debut pamphlet sargam / swargam (Brookes Poetry #ignition press) was selected as PBS Pamphlet Choice in 2021.
Zahra will be with us from November 2024 through February 2025. To find out how to submit poetry prose, word & image, filmpoems and reviews to her please check out our submissions page here.
IS&T internships run for 4 months each consecutively, and in order to go some way towards redressing the balance in publishing, will for the foreseeable future come from the Black, Asian, Latinx and others from the global majority (ethnic minority in the UK). More details are below.