This is Poetry Moment on WPSU – a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and creative writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
Welcome to Poetry Moment. I’m Marjorie Maddox
It’s September 15. Officially, we’re now two weeks into autumn. Just for a moment, though, let’s sneak back to summer. It’s started to rain, there are lots of puddles, and—just like a child—we’re ready to dance. Today’s poem, “Summer School Recess” by Tabassam Shah, underscores the joy of belonging.
Tabassam Shah is a poet, historian, educator, and activist. Her poetry collection, Red & Crescent Moons, reflects upon Pakistani American family life in rural Appalachia. She is a board member of the poetry advocacy group Berks Bards, based in Reading. This summer, she taught several plein air poetry classes, using “nature as a writing prompt…while out of doors or . . . on the trail.” A Highlights Foundation scholarship recipient, Tabassam is working on picture books about Pakistani American childhood.
There was no mosque where Tabassam grew up in rural South Carolina, so her mother held Sunday School classes at their home. The poet explains, “Hardly anyone knows that there are Muslim American communities in rural Appalachia, but there was something about hearing my mom lead the Arabic language lessons with her thick Punjabi accent and then hear my peers answer in Arabic laced with their thick Appalachian southern accents. It made me feel like I belonged in that place and that it was home.”
Here’s “Summer School Recess” by Tabassam Shah
Summer School Recess
In this droplet of time
Is my mother’s laughter
She put an end to today’s lesson
Threw the screen door open
And commenced dancing in the rain
Her students followed her
Jumping in puddles barefoot
I stood in awe
At these Pakistani American children
With their southern accents
Full of that Appalachian drawl
And my mother’s sing-songy Punjabi
Hanging in the heavy humid air
The blessing of rain
Smoothing out all notions of difference.
Previously published in Red & Crescent Moons (The Watershed Journal Literary Group, 2022).
That was “Summer School Recess” by Tabassum Shah. Thanks for listening. With Poetry
