Brown Boy
by Nishat Ahmed
This chapbook of poems is very much about identity, the layers of a person navigating the world with a keen eye, at once fierce and vulnerable. It explores race, beauty, relationships, family. Like the poem about finding unexpected music in the night, these poems will make you stop and listen, windows down, and leave you thinking about them weeks and months later.
32 pages
open edition
Additional Info
EXCERPT
“Okay”
you’re crying in the driver’s seat after a party at your friends / & I’m crying in the passenger seat trying to make sense of your words / why do you always have to bring up race? / why can’t you just be calm about it? / If you’re gonna yell at my friends we should stop going out / & I can’t understand why you’re asking these questions / when you want me to be the father of your children / & I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for our kids / if they end up looking like me / so for a moment / I stay quiet / stare at the moths outside / orbiting the streetlight like planets / & wish I could be as sure as them / to always know where the light is / & then I tell you / if you love me / I come first / & my body comes first / & my body & my skin have always had to come first because / for my whole life I was told / my body & my skin made me second rate / & if you love me / you have to love all of me / & if you love me / you have to be angry & you have to yell & you have to stand up to your white friends with me & you have to say that’s fucked up you’d say that & you have to call them out / & I finish saying this to you in this muggy car / sitting in your apartment parking lot / & I am scared this is the end of love / at least / the end of ours / because what you say next will decide / whether I say goodnight beside you in bed / or say goodbye
ABOUT THE COVER ART
The cover is designed by Nicci Mechler using a distressed typeface by Yellow Design Studio. The colors are inspired by the flag of Bangladesh.
ABOUT THE POET
Nishat Ahmed is a Bangladeshi-American and an Illinois native with a deep love for Fall Out Boy, The Notebook, and Chipotle. He received his MFA in poetry from Old Dominion University. His work has been published by Sobotka, Words Dance, Into the Void, The Academy of American Poets, The Tampa Review, and more. It has also been performed at TEDxUIUC and AWP. His first chapbook, Field Guide for End Days was released in 2020 from Finishing Line Press. You can currently find Nishat scouring Chicago’s neighborhoods for the best dive bar wings in the city.
NOTES
Work in this chapbook first appeared in: Blue Agave Literary Journal, Barely South Review, poets.org, and Tampa Review.