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    Staying Right Here
    Staying Right Here
    Staying Right Here
    Ebook159 pages58 minutes

    Staying Right Here

    By Usman Hameedi

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Usman Hameedi’s debut collection, Staying Right Here, is a journey in finding home. Hameedi invites readers to bear witness to vignettes of joy and hardship as he navigates finding his place in America.

    From an ode to Bodegas, an autobiography of his eyebrows, and elegies for lost friends, Hameedi’s thematic metaphors for family, wellness, and American biases weave a literary tapestry.

    Reading Usman’s work is like drinking a warm chai while watching the sunset in Brooklyn, or coming home to an aromatic Biryani. In his first poetry collection, Hameedi writes with an unmistakably unique voice that is not afraid of who he is.

    Staying Right Here is for those who have looked for themselves in the media and only seen a one-dimensional character staring back at them.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherButton Poetry
    Release dateApr 4, 2023
    ISBN9781638340621
    Staying Right Here
    Author

    Usman Hameedi

    Usman Hameedi is a Pakistani-American scientist, poet, educator, and author of Staying Right Here (Button Poetry). He also serves on Mass Poetry’s Board of Directors. Since 2008, he has competed in and coached for collegiate, national, and international level poetry slams. He was a Mass Poetry Artist-in-Residence and worked with students in Hyde Park and Salem. Usman’s work has been featured on The Huffington Post, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and The Story Collider: Storytelling for Scientists podcast and more.

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      Book preview

      Staying Right Here - Usman Hameedi

      cover.jpg

      PRAISE FOR STAYING RIGHT HERE

      Navigating the rise of American fascism after 9/11, Staying Right Here is a collection that delivers on its promise with each poem documenting the hard-won fight to find safety and stability in a world built against you. Hameedi’s debut explores intergenerational trauma, diaspora, and identity while tracing a path between Pakistan, New York City, and Boston, asking what does it mean to stay, and what must we leave behind?

      —Simone Person, author of Smoke Girl

      Usman Hameedi’s debut poetry collection is a complex and nuanced love letter to a place beyond place. A fierce defense of home and how that concept changes when the forces of gentrification, space, and time push to alter it. These poems provide a window into critical junctures of Hameedi’s life, where family, friends, and inspirations were first cast into their molten cores. From the vibrant Brooklyn streets that paved his childhood, to intimate moments shared with Abbu and Ammi, Hameedi illustrates with masterful clarity the heart and hustle of a young Pakistani boy’s journey from unknowing child to seasoned poet, student of the game, and faithful son. These poems deserve to be held tight, studied closely, and read like the prayers they are.

      —Michael Mic Ting, 2018 Individual World

      Poetry Slam Champion, author of Novelty

      Usman Hameedi’s Staying Right Here is part love letter, part homage and part elegy to the cities and people we love. Full of tenderness and grief, Hameedi writes with the unflinching generosity of a poet who is holding all the people I love / as if they were glass / butterfly wings.

      —Noor Hindi, author of Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow.

      Staying Right Here is a resolution against not only erasure, but against colonialism in its slipperiest form; compelled self-erasure. Usman Hameedi’s poems identify resistance as an heirloom that lives in the classroom, the neighborhood deli, the mirror, a black & white photo of two lovers; it is a living thing among unwieldy ruins but, Hameedi asserts, I will be the home I need. This collection is about what we lose, what we sacrifice—yes, but also what we reclaim, what we scream, what burns its way into belonging.

      —Jay Ward, author of Composition

      STAYING RIGHT HERE

      img1.jpg

      STAYING RIGHT HERE

      POETRY

      AUTHOR: Usman Hameedi

      COVER DESIGN: Talisa Almonte

      AUTHOR PHOTO: Beau

      img2.png

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

      © 2023 by Usman Hameedi

      img2.pngimg3.png

      Published by Button Poetry

      Minneapolis, MN 55418 | http://www.buttonpoetry.com

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      Manufactured in the United States of America

      PRINT ISBN: 978-1-63834-100-0

      EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-63834-062-1

      AUDIOBOOK ISBN: 978-1-63834-069-0

      First printing

      img4.png

      "There is no normal. There’s just us,

      and what we do with what we’ve been given."

      —KAMALA KHAN, MS. MARVEL

      For anyone who couldn’t see themselves in the stories they read.

      I hope my words mean something to you

      and inspire you to write your own.

      CONTENTS

      Preface

      God Bless Deli Speaks to My Gentrified Neighborhood

      Part I: Home

      Calculus

      Heirloom

      Closed Gates

      NYC Sestina

      Ode to Jackson Heights

      Khandaan

      Owed to Ms. Samuel

      Waterfall

      Nurture

      Part II: Exodus

      Erasure

      Drawing

      Again, Another Hurricane

      Regret Is an Elaborate Puzzle

      Waiting Room

      Wudu

      Fragile

      College Admissions

      Reflecting Pool

      The Bullet

      The Ghost of September 11th, 2001, Addresses January 6th, 2021

      Part III: Homecoming

      The Autobiography of My Eyebrows

      Hurricanes: Revisited

      Short List of Life Lessons Brought to You by World Wrestling Entertainment

      Flying While Muslim. Then. Now. Probably Forever.

      I’m Easily Distracted

      Birthdays

      The Reality of Stars

      The Discography of Our Friendship

      Where Are You Really From?

      Part IV: Assemble

      The Return

      There’s No Place Like Home

      It’s My Favorite Picture of Us

      Building a Home

      Questions During My First Zoom Lecture

      Should It Stay or Go?

      De-Fusion & Polymerization

      Ode to the Paper Shredder

      Nature

      Ki Banu Duniya Da

      Epilogue

      Hi! My Name is Usman

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Book Recommendations from the Author

      A NOTE ON POETRY E-BOOKS

      You are reading a poetry e-book, which, based on the settings of your device, can result in significant changes to the original formatting as intended by the author and publisher. For the best experience reading this book, please set your device so that the following line fits entirely on one line on your screen.

      Lose our sense of love, value in our traditions, pride in our languages.

      STAYING RIGHT HERE

      img5.png

      GOD BLESS DELI SPEAKS TO MY GENTRIFIED NEIGHBORHOOD

      Don’t you dare Columbus us,

      call us a hidden gem, Buzzfeed us

      into a new taste for unfamiliar mouths.

      You cannot discover

      what’s already rooted,

      flourishing before you arrived.

      We’ve been here:

      bearded, black hair, Yemeni.

      Assalamualaikum! Keif al-Hal?

      Been Muslim. Still Muslim—

      before, during, and after 9/11.

      Always halal and

      to

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