Poem-a-Day - "Surah" by Tarfia Faizullah

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January 27, 2021  

Surah


Tarfia Faizullah

the falling paper flower

the plastic tree branch

the plight of reminiscing

the bureaucracy of kismet

the factories empty of logic

the bins to hold what’s done

the spaceship of butterflies

the video game of intimacy

the series premiere of strife

the discretion of the cosmos

the sharp wisdom of the young

O friend who reads in a cave w/o light

the comb detangling the scars

forward is not so far away

Copyright © 2021 by Tarfia Faizullah. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 27, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“I decline to explain or contextualize this poem. If you, reader, get something from it—that’s all that matters.”
Tarfia Faizullah

Tarfia Faizullah is the author of Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf, 2018) and Seam (SIU, 2014). She lives in Dallas, Texas. 

Registers of Illuminated Villages
(Graywolf, 2018)

“Electronic Thorns” by Reem Allawati
read more

“Collude” by Bhanu Kapil
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Thanks to Fatimah Asghar, author of If They Come For Us (One World/ Random House, 2018), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a Q&A about Asghar’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year
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