Voices in Verse Vol. 1: ‘Conversations With A Reluctant Feminist’

Finalist and winner Risham Amjad performs her winning poem, ‘The Reluctant Feminist’. She tied with Orooj-e-Zafar when our panel of judges which included TMS contributor and poet Ilona Yusuf and Editor-in-Chief Maryam Piracha, in addition to Assistant Fiction Editor Sauleha Kamal, and Radio DJ Yumna Haas, couldn’t decide between both performances and talent on display.

‘Voices in Verse’  is a series designed to create a platform for performance poetry and dramatic readings in Pakistan and in other parts of the world, where opportunities like these are limited. We aim to include as many styles as possible and though this particular incarnation was limited to writers under 30, we will be expanding to the country’s two other metropolises – Lahore and Karachi – before the year’s up.

The magazine’s offline activities began with creative writing workshops, expanded to word game nights, with poetry slams the latest form of engagement with the wider readership and audience. We are also looking to add an additional component in our workshops when we restart in early 2016.

You can read Risham’s poem below.

When I was younger, before Instagram

Before 100 likes on your profile picture

Meant that you mattered,

When my ugliness was deliberate, I used to call myself Plain Jane.

Hair put back in a no-nonsense-not-interested ponytail

Big black joggers under my school-uniform-shalwar

My frame sheathed in a school sweatshirt two sizes too big.

I banned kajal and lip-gloss and straighteners near

My frizzy hair.

I thought that being smart meant that you couldn’t be pretty.

I thought that because I made myself ugly, I was smart.

I took sick pleasure

In contrasting my plain face to their carefully made-up ones

In comparing my wild, frizzy, rough pom-pom of a ponytail

With their stick straight, socially acceptable silky manes.

High school was one day after another

Of resisting my femininity, even if I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I was confident enough in myself to be as I was 24-7.

I didn’t realize they judged me twice over

Once for not “putting in any effort”

And then again because I had the nerve, the gall

To not trade on the currency of my face

To not negotiate with the inches of my waist.

There is an invisible rule book

About being a girl that speaks

Through the mouths of fathers, uncles, brothers.

It says “You’re free enough already. You’re going to college, aren’t you?”

It says “Can you believe it? Mrs. Cheema’s daughter got married straight after FSc.”

It says “Ab ye bas karo. Aisa sirf Bollywood ki filmon mein hota hai.”

Is there any wonder I want

Out of these underground tunnels

Where they want to trap me so one day I can

Share a bed, share closet-space

Share air, share all the parts of me,

That I kept behind the wall

The rulebook made me put up brick by brick.

It is not romantic at all

To be seen as your damsel in distress.

If I wanted saving, I’d call you asshole.

In my secret fantasies, yes, I want to beg on my knees

And have you hit me over the head

Drag me back to the cave. Keep me barefoot and pregnant

While I cook at the stove

And spice and season just like your mother did.

But then I wake and face the fight

To choose what clothes I can wear,

Where I may go, with whom,

Till what time and if I may have the

Distinct privilege of

Being chauffeured there.

I carry with me everywhere

The weight of my eligibility

(I am 20, I am young, I am fertile)

I come from a “good family”

I am yours for the taking

Because I am fair enough

Because my father brings to our F7 home

A paycheck big enough.

I carry with me everywhere

The weight of being a girl, a woman

Not a person, but a set of orifices

That could be filled if I’m not careful

I could be soiled in the sound

Of a zipper being lowered.

One trap after another I must navigate

Be beautiful, be smart, be capable

But only to a certain pre-set degree.

What am I, a fucking oven?