DREAMS FOR EARTH
Now available from Deep Vellum Publishing.
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Equal parts prayer and protest, the poems in DREAMS FOR EARTH invite us to live fully in the power, responsibility, and joy of our interconnectedness.
In her debut poetry collection, Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi calls in a deep sense of care for the Earth and for one another. In a world where some pull the trigger, some look away, some try to stop the gun—Hirsi asks: Which one are you?
Illustrated by Ángel Faz and Jack (Anna) Jackson
Advance Praise for DREAMS FOR EARTH
“Offering profound reflections on our past, present and future fractals, Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi carefully threads the needle to pinpoint articulations of a world in perpetual motion. These poems are rich with whale song, Sun Ra earthbound, sonic landscapes where the dream and the material collide to reveal how the act of creation is diurnal, ceaseless, and inevitably, our greatest asset. DREAMS FOR EARTH is an intimate look at the interiority of motherhood — how structures of neocolonialism and climate catastrophe shape the self and the worlds around it in various forms and fervor. This collection is a vibrant tapestry of all our various wounds and the flowers that bloom in between them.” —Ashia Ajani, author of Heirloom
“To read Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi’s DREAMS FOR EARTH is to be held by an effervescent river teeming with the fury of a thousand disquieted beings. Bridging earth and sky, the poems awaken as a flock of herons circling overhead, offering searing witness to the infinite atrocity that is police violence, zionist occupation and shattered genealogy. Amidst the mind-numbing turbulence of modernity, Fatima conjures a dreamcurrent for us to ride that sends anger earthward so we might recall how “to absorb the sky’s sermon” and “haunt all those who dare unbraid your glory”. —shō yamagushiku, author of shima
“To be honestly alive today is to experience the breadth of rage and grace that Hirsi gathers together in this courageous, moving book. Resisting empire’s assaults on our shared humanity, these poems witness and face the unbearable brutality that empire has unleashed upon our kin. When it feels impossible to say anything more, Hirsi offers us much needed words to keep birthing with the world we need, the one that is possible because of yarrow, mango, ocean, olive, keffiyehs, and the medicine that grows when we reciprocate earth’s gifts with love, gratitude, and attention. She reaches deep into the reserves of life that mothers conceive and tend so tenaciously, pulling up seeds, grief, songs, petals, and prayer to keep our spirits aligned with the earth.” —Rita Wong, author of Current, Climate
“DREAMS FOR EARTH is a strikingly visceral account of the tension between worlds: the one that is ending, the one that could’ve been, and the many constantly looming with every unprecedented moment. From poem to poem, Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi holds the reader’s hand in the dark corner of a bucolic scene, and evinces the felt impact of collapse as it happens simultaneously, surely, and ominously. Hirsi carefully but masterfully unveils the ways in which moments designated for joy now require us to bear the necessary weight of empathy and care, and the responsibilities we have to each other.” —Sasha Banks, author of america, MINE
“Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi adds her voice to poetry’s sacred search for the better spells between us, conjuring names that “do not refract / grief,” children as “little orchestras bouncing through the streets,” and “a taste of what’s to come.” Bless this bright poet’s incantatory dreaming. May we walk inside the wilderness of its safety one soon day.”—Geffrey Davis, author of One Wild Word Away
“Courageously dedicated to the heart of what is true and necessary, these poems weave and storytell with grace and power. They will embolden you — encouraging you to imagine another shape for our world, to dream a healing, and to take action on behalf of this dream. Intentional and precise in form, these poems give us striking permission to widen, to extend. Stunningly honest, a tender reckoning, we vision and do not look away. Illustrated with magic, collaborative, and deep, this collection moves. At moments, I was called to read aloud; as chant, spell, archive, protest, prayer, narrative, eulogy, praise. Let this book accompany you in grief, rage, fear, joy, and our collective possibility.” —Aiyana Masla, author of The Underdream and Stone Fruit
EVERYTHING GOOD IS DYING
Published August 2019 by Deep Vellum Publishing.
Available for order here.
Make a map a poem / Draw in pencil so glory can be erased
/ on paper as space tucks atoms
into a time capsule / No one will remove its top / We will be fuzzy in God’s memory / a dream She had and can’t quite remember / a wolf in a fairytale / but which one
This chapbook publication is brought to you by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs through a Cultural Vitality Project grant.
Moon Woman
Published September 2018 by Thoughtcrime Press.
Available for order here.
“MOON WOMAN begins “beholden to a body,” at once lyrical and sharp, an incredible collection of poems that span intimate terrain to collective memories. With deftness, she floats, submerges, and comes up for air. Her words, like testimonies, skim horizontally across the surface of her skin. There’s a tenderness that is also critical and self-aware, calling for witness after trespass. Sit with Moon Woman under a tree. Breathe in these poems, as she whispers, “feel most free beneath my gaze,” and then exhale.”
—Sophia Terazawa
“In these poems, Fatima Hirsi celebrates the body in its wondrous wholeness—but there is also a record of brokenness here. These poems are a vessel containing joy and sorrow—suffering and hope. They are, in other words, much like the cup of life.” —Camille T. Dungy
Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi 