As part of Spread the Word’s Lewisham, Borough of Literature campaign, four local writers were commissioned to create new work under the theme, ‘To All The Places I have Read’. The commissions were for writers of poetry or short stories, are aged 18+, currently living in Lewisham and from underrepresented backgrounds.

The Borough of Literature Commissions were printed, alongside Emerging Writer and Deaf and Disabled Writer commissions, in the Deptford Literature Fesitval Anthology.

Crofton Books by Fathima Zahra

A woman   braver than me    curls spilling

out of her hat  squeals 

‘just like my living room’  – points

at books snaking up the ceiling  climbing

down the rails   a chair in the midst

I put back my book     yellow 

and dusting   with a love note inside  (the usual).  

I am looking for instructions 

on how to live   and pick Ferrante 

this time. 

Walk down the tree-lined road

that smell of citrus  in the summers

taking me back   to my aunt’s house

by the river  with the wind that lulls you to sleep

and she catches me     Nicholas Sparks slipping from under a textbook

I’d crept upstairs to be alone with.

No pretenses here    I inherit my room 

from a writer   fill the DIY shelf 

with a world beyond my passport       

spines lined the plastic glint and numbers

signalling a new life.

I am pulled out of 50s Naples 

by the sounds of the students next door

pulling up a mattress in the garden      stringing lights around our fence

laughter  floating to the sky

like a balloon let go    just then.

About Fatima Zahra

Fathima Zahra is an Indian poet, performer and facilitator based in London.  

She is an alum of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, Barbican Young Poets and BBC 1Xtra Words First. Her poems have won the Bridport Prize, Asia House Poetry Slam and Wells Fest Young Poets Prize. She has performed her work at venues across the UK including Hay Festival, Latitude and Last Word festival.  

Her debut pamphlet ‘sargam / swargam’ (ignitionpress, 2021) was selected as Poetry Book Society’s pamphlet choice. She completed her MA in Creative Writing and Education at Goldsmiths University of London, with distinction.