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.