From the work Crosslight for Youngbird from Nightboat Books
Asiya Wadud’s work is at once mystifying and thrilling. I could very well believe performative recitations of her lyric in the forms of borderline surreal mutterings, to the proud proclamatory verse with bravado. Here, I read just one of the many poems of hers I love and try to explain a bit as to why I love this poem, why I find it works.
Within each work of Wadud’s that I’ve read, I have found collections of reference and incantation, labyrinth and wayfinding, grief and life. These poems are to the poetic what water is to an ocean.
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