In Nuha Fariha’s God Mornings, Tiger Nights, a keen and observant speaker narrates a love letter to immigration. At the same time, the speaker also addresses international and national issues such as gender norms, Islamophobia, unnerving xenophobia, and personal and cultural isolation in an increasingly dangerous America. The speaker’s astute, brave self-awareness centers the collection, and their direct, bold voice echoes in each poem.
In “A Brief Travel Advisory,” the speaker initially focuses on travel restrictions, specifically luggage requirements, for travelers. The speaker uses technical language, such as measurements, and describes a large suitcase as “about thirty inches by nineteen inches by twelve inches.” The speaker’s description develops a foreboding tone when they utilize the phrase “Experts advise:” “Experts advise that such suitcases / can hold between seven to nine days’ worth of travel items.” As the poem continues, the suitcase transforms into a metaphor for the emotional weight immigration holds. The speaker describes their family as “perpetual strangers” who are “always ready to leave.” The generational turmoil fully develops, and the poem’s final line captures the turmoil’s personal outcomes: “I traveled light like all daughters, carrying only my weight out of the world.” Thus, in this poignant prose poem, the speaker establishes the strong, feminist voice which appears in other poems like “my sister pushes white men.”
A sleek, prosaic poem, “my sister pushes white men” brims with defiance. Reinforcing the speaker’s and the sister’s defiant tones in the poem’s condensed form. The title acts as the poem’s first line. The first stanza consists of four chaotic lines in which the speaker’s younger sister is shouting, “This is my street” and “You can’t treat me like that” at white men. The poem’s defining moment occurs in the third line, when the little sister shouts, “I am free” and “swings high & dangles her feet & smiles & laughs.” Eventually, the poem breaks into the second stanza, a single line in which the speaker declares, “She is five years old & the bravest person I know.” The split between the first and the second stanza not only acts to establish the age difference between the speaker and the little sister; it also reinforces the speaker’s admiration for the sister’s bravery.
God Mornings, Tiger Nights fearlessly tackles the xenophobia and isolationist attitudes permeating a Trump-era America. “A New Citizenship Test” intrepidly addresses the January 6th insurrection during which Trump supporters stormed the US capitol, Trump’s double impeachment, and the obviously racist policies enacted and supported by the Trump Administration. In this poem, the speaker asks questions like “Who elects the president?” and “If over 650 white supremacists convene in one area, plant a bomb, / and kill 5 people, what does the President do?” Other questions—such as “If a 56-year-old Supreme Court appointee is accused of sexual assault, / what does the President do?”—emerge. After many of the questions, the italicized word “Nothing” appears as the question’s answer. The repetition, as well as the italicization, of the word “Nothing” establishes a damning, condemning response pattern and also expresses the speaker’s frustration with a nation whose policies and politicians celebrate racism, sexism, and murder.
However, God Mornings, Tiger Nights focuses not only on the immediate racial, ideological, and political divides that widened during Trump’s presidency. The poem “After 9/11” shows that the September 11th attacks laid yet another layer of racism to America’s foundation. The speaker recalls, “Yolk splatter remained on our front door. / The yellow centers hardened, / fastened itself onto our dark mahogany.” The speaker observes the emotional and moral consequences the vandalism incurred on their family: “My father’s shoulders / slumped, deflated, defeated.” The speaker repeats phrases like “On the screen we watched” and words like “Three.” The repetition forms a sense of disbelief and frustration. As the poem concludes, the speaker asserts, “I don’t eat eggs”—a simple statement capturing the vandalism incident’s long-term psychological and emotional implications for the speaker.
Generational trauma is another subject explored in God Nights, Tiger Mornings. The poem most profoundly exploring this subject is “Studies in Bangla.” In it, the speaker once again relies on repetition to reaffirm their beliefs and stances. The first stanza is where the repetition creates the most emotional impact:
In our biology textbooks we read that
Trauma passes through multiple generations,
Trauma changes the structure of our genes
How much does the rape of 400,000 women
change the structure of our collective nation?
In the fourth stanza, the speaker interjects recollections of time with their mother with thoughts like “Until college, I thought that to care for / A woman was to hear her scream.” They also pose the question, “Can women who are taught to be in pain / Forget how to fall in love with themselves?” The speaker then provides a list of Bangla words—“pani, water, chal, rice, bhaath, cooked rice / Shanta, peaceful good, dhongi, prideful bad”—and describes them as “These are words we teach our daughters.” These words contradict the words “Love, hope, fears, dreams, survival,” which the speaker asserts are “the words they hold inside.” The poem develops a psychological feel as it concludes: “In our neurology textbooks we read / Neurons that don’t receive stimulus die / This is called growth / This is called survival.” The reiteration of the word “survival” creates the sense of personal fortitude the speaker has discovered and remains determined to carry.
God Mornings, Tiger Nights explores personal, generational, and cultural spaces many individuals refuse to acknowledge exist. These poems are a ledger of personal reckonings and societal failings, made even more noticeable because of a brave speaker’s self-awareness and direct resilience.
POETRY
God Mornings, Tiger Nights
By Nuha Fariha
Game Over Books
Published August 8, 2023
Southern Review of Books 