Paisley

Poems

Rakhshan Rizwan, Rachel Piercey

• Publisher: The Emma Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780957459663
• eBook ISBN:
  9781910139776
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Rakhshan Rizwan's debut collection simmers with a poised, driving anger. Drawing on the rich visual and material culture of her home region, Rizwan unpacks and offers critical comment on the vexed issues of class, linguistic and cultural identity – particularly for women – in the context of Pakistan and South Asia. She writes about the hypocrisy of the men who claim to worship women, the nuances of using Urdu or Hindi, and the many contradictions of the city of her birth, Lahore. As well as startling free verse, Rizwan's many accomplished ghazals both explore and demonstrate her fascination with multilingualism, code-switching, displacement and belonging. The poems in Paisley are an unflinchingly feminist assault on received ideas about womanhood which present the reader with often-uncomfortable truths.

Noon

My name has a noon ghunna at the end— a noon

without a dot—

— a deep—

nasal sound that lives at the bottom

of Pakistani throats— Germans call me ‘Rakhsha’—

They make the ‘R’ thick— and pasty— like

—

and are confounded by the—

— ‘Is it silent?’

‘No,’ I tell them, ‘it is half-silent.’— So their

mouths try it— but the half-silence of it

makes their tongues stumble—

I wonder which forgotten histories bequeathed

our mouths this strange sound—

which passing empires taught our tongues—

the shades of noon—

My Urdu-Persian name—

gets lodged in the throats of

immigration officers like a wish-bone,

centuries of residual histories— claw at their jaws— confusing

their inexperienced tongues, their

teeth click hastily around the noon—

—

the unpronounceable parts of my mongrel

name— cloaked in an Anglo-Saxon ‘n’— make them pause

for breath— My mother gave me this strange name— not to

punish— European tongues— but

because it tasted sweet to her tongue—

the way she says it— she twists ‘Rakhshan’ into

Rakhshu— her voice like velvet crème brûlée—

When she calls me, I remember that

my name was not always a criminal—

a confounding intonation to be

policed at a border-crossing— but was—

something soft— that purred— I was

someone’s Mashuk— beloved— I still get letters in the mail—

addressed to Mr. Rakhshmann— a sort

of retribution— for the verbal gymnastics

I put authority figures through— Sometimes—

I do not correct them— pleased at the Germanness

of my name— I wonder

what it would be to glide through Europe

my skin, my scarf, my eyes,

my words, my jaw— untouched by

the gazes and whispered words— of white Europeans—

To be Rakhshmann— blonde— and blue—

and protected in a conch-shell of my whiteness—

to be untainted— by history—

(What is it about white skin which makes it

unable to carry history? And

what is it about mine, that makes it able to carry it?)

The shape of my mouth accommodates intermediate

sounds, words at the precipice of Anglo-Saxon sounds—

Sounds that have burnt their boats to Germanic languages?

Sounds whose precarious crossings—

across land and water— determine

the maps of my life— fragrant sounds like

— ma— bittersweet like judaiyaan—

separation.

Paisley

Her first cry was unpainted, her second paisley,

her body was velvet, cross-stitched on paisley,

Ozymandias desired a male heir, not paisley,

history is carved into marble busts, not paisleys,

they tried to straighten her out, little paisley,

for she always curled at the tip like paisley,

on Grecian urns and bas-reliefs, figures of paisley,

not walking the vulgar streets, sisters of paisley,

interred into the body of cashmere, delicate paisleys,

and then kept indoors, in a perfumed box, centuries of paisley,

in Lahori newspapers the stories of bloodied paisleys,

skulls cracked, limbs burnt, dishonourable paisley,

they unmade the daughter of Eve, quivering paisley,

with corrosive acid, the effaced body of paisley,

on the aquamarine Jhelum, the motif, unmistakably paisley,

her shalwar buoying to the surface, the supine body of paisley,

in her children’s mouths lie morsels of paisley,

wedged between her husband’s teeth, slivers of paisley,

Eve-teasers slant their eyes, the body of paisley,

their caresses and whispered words, naked paisley,

bronze men on horseback rode on invisible paisley,

empires con...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Other Titles from the Emma Press
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Contents
• Lahore, by train
• Partition
• Speech Therapy
• Buffet
• Colonial roses
• Urdu/Hindi
• Balloon Wallah
• The Nawab's Daughter
• Hair
• Women's Time
• Eve
• Migrant
• Dreamscapes
• Cordoba
• Europe
• Noon
• Paisley
• On running
• Acknowledgements
• About the Poet