Today is International Women’s Day and Books from Scotland couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than to share with you poems from Nadine Aisha Jassat’s debut poetry collection, Let Me Tell You This. It is a brilliant, vital and inspiring collection, and we are excited to watch Nadine and her work flourish.

Extract taken from Let Me Tell You This
by Nadine Aisha Jassat
published by 404 Ink

Third Generation

After Langston Hughes’ ‘Cross’

 My old man’s a brown old man,
and my old mother’s white.
When they ask if he’s from Pakistan,
I’m told to be polite.
When they say she’s not my Mother,
I say to me we look the same,
and when they tell me to be ashamed of them,
I say I have two worlds to gain.
My Bali wants a suburban house
to prove himself to you,
and if my Ma ever left that house
you’d condemn him for that too.
I grew myself from both of them
each bone, each nail, each tooth.
I wonder how my children will grow,
under the shadow of this roof?

*

Inheritance

She calls it having a word with herself.
My mother, looking at me,

saying all the things she needs
and doesn’t.

Fear does what it is supposed to,
to hold you tight,

until a word with yourself is the only way
you can try to pause the descending,

spiralling, tapping, trapping
paralysis but for the beating fist;

What if? But then? If I don’t? If I do?
Anxiety. 4 syllables given to this ceaseless, connecting string.

This genetic-chemical-taught-inherited
threaded parallel between

My mother and me.

My mother and me.

Threaded parallel between
this genetic-chemical-taught-inherited

Anxiety. 4 syllables given to this ceaseless, connecting string.
What if? But then? If I don’t? If I do?

 Paralysis but for the beating fist
spiralling, tapping, trapping.

You can try to pause the descending,
until a word with yourself is the only way

to hold you tight.
Fear does what it is supposed to,

and doesn’t.
Saying all the things she needs,

My mother. Looking at me.
She calls it having a word with herself.

*

Coin Toss

In response to a One Penny Coin, branded with ‘Votes for
Women’ on the head of the King, held at Glasgow
Women’s Library’s Suffragette archive.

 1. Heads
12th November, 1910

I say, you think you can tax so much of my wage
but then won’t give me a say on how it gets paid?
I say, it’s not my law
which makes the roof over my head
more my husband’s than mine;
nor that disavows me from quitting the swine
at a time of my own choosing.
A penny from my thoughts
meets a penny in my fist.
Friday next, me and my Sis
will make our mark,
not just on money but in minds:
Deeds Not Words, till the end of my days.
Votes for Women. That’s what I say.

2. Tails
6th February, 2018

I saw it online; women fighting head to tail for their rights.
Retweet: #votesforwomen #metoo
#timeforchange #changestartswithyou.
The thing is, there’s still so much to do:
women face violence every day,
are taxed on tampons, denied equal pay, even get scoffed at
if we save our own names for our children.
When you tell me we’ve won equality,
I’ll tell you at least two of my sisters are murdered a week
by men. We’re at a coin toss in history,
spinning in the air between how far we’ve come,
and where we need to be. I’ve heard the tales,
I’ll take them with me, as I use my words in protest.
As I forge ahead. As we forge ahead.

*

29

Congratulating me on turning twenty nine,
my friend tells me it’s a number in its prime,
and I ask her what she means.

‘It’s only divisible by itself,’
she replies, and I nod,
and say, its about time,
my age finally reflected
who I am inside.

Let Me Tell You This, by Nadine Aisha Jassat is published by 404 Ink, priced £8.99