1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
This is my first published book so I can’t compare it to anything other than not having a published book, which feels pretty different! For that reason, it’s too soon to say how it’s changed my life. But the decision to compile my poetry into a coherent collection and the work I’ve done to achieve that has shifted my attitude towards writing as an occupation. I now think about my creative work as pieces of larger wholes rather than just impulsive projects.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I’ve been writing fiction and poetry concurrently for many years. I enjoy both but poetry has a way of expressing spiritual truths that other forms of writing just don’t. I think being from Pakistan, especially being Punjabi, inclines me towards poetry naturally. I’ve grown up hearing poems recited to me, in English, Urdu, and Punjabi, especially by my grandparents, which is something I’ve taken for granted and I’m now starting to become aware of its impact on me.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
It starts almost instantly, the weird idea comes from nowhere and usually when I’m occupied with something else. But that doesn’t go very far until I start the slow process of putting it down and looking at it and getting frustrated at why it looks like that on a page and sounds different in my head. As for drafting, I’m terrible at it. I usually edit as I go which I know is not recommended. Mostly, I revise and rewrite a line before moving onto the next. I have notes scattered here and there but these are more like ‘verbal moodboards’ than coherent research.
4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I haven’t thought about long projects yet. That doesn’t mean I haven’t fantasized about becoming the author of a great novel, but I’m grateful for being taught early on to be realistic and not jump into ambitious projects. I’ve had many successful people guide me through the realities of writing. One of the most important was: work from small to large. Start with flash fiction, small poems, maybe polished journal entries, put your energy into those first, then move onto longer forms. I’ve barely begun a ‘career’ in writing so I have to trust this process and see where it goes.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
My poems don’t lend themselves to spoken word performance. I write them to be read and don’t put much thought into how they’ll sound. So when I do readings, they don’t sound good as they’re being performed. I’m trying to get better at writing more performance-ready poems, especially by drawing inspiration from Urdu sha’iri which has a very strong spoken word component.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
My writing is probably too theoretical. I’m very occupied with intercultural knowledges, negotiating my home traditions with Western modernity. My writing interrogates the assumptions that come with intercultural dialogues, especially in a place like Canada with all its performative multiculturalism rhetoric. I draw much of my inspiration from postcolonial thinkers who challenge hegemonic and Imperialist epistemologies, especially Edward Said, Fanon, Cesaire, Iqbal, and Shariati. I’m just regurgitating their words and adding personal anecdotes along the way. Aside from that, though I don’t count it as a “theoretical concern,” my writing is steeped in mystical thought and teachings. As I repeat throughout my answers, the Sufi traditions give me inspiration beyond these great thinkers. Mystical inspiration doesn’t work in the question-answer structure because it’s beyond language so it’s hard to say what questions I answer when I write through this inspiration. But a tangible result of it is a keen sense of empathy that pushes beyond personal and cultural barriers and lets me capture intense personal and social experiences.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I think there’s more creative writers operating at multiple levels of culture than we tend to acknowledge because they don’t call their work ‘creative’ even though it is. I think writers always find themselves in strange ‘moments’ in history, but now especially their work has been threatened by AI and slowly, their value is starting to be remembered in the wake of AI’s disappointing capabilities. I also think writers should see their work beyond its political impact. It’s a result of Eurocentric reductionism that writers are encouraged to think only in terms of political, material ends. I don’t think all writing is or should be political, though you can stretch definitions to fit your argument as much as you want. There are truths that transcend that, which all writing, but especially poetry, can uncover. I guess that’s what writers should be chasing after, to unveil Maya and reach the Gha’ib.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I haven’t consulted a professional editor before, but I’ve had the opportunity to share my work with incredibly talented people, who are my friends and also my mentors and have dedicated a lot of their time to editing my writing. I think that’s the best place to start, if you’re lucky, and unless a large project demands professional editing, leave your work in the hands of friends and family who aren’t thinking of marketability or industry practices.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
One really talented writer told me writing is an extroverted activity. People seem to think being a writer means sitting in a dark room at a desk and being overly existential about everything (all things I’ve associated with writing and romantically tried to imitate). That’s just one very small part of it, the majority of the work involves engaging with your communities, as many as possible, and sharing experiences that may or may not make their way into your writing but that make you sensitive to seeing the meaning in apparently mundane interactions. That stuck with me because I think it’s an attitude shift that gives you more endurance and a healthier approach to writing and art in general.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I’m a very poorly disciplined writer. I’ve tried to write regularly, to keep a writing journal and all that. I think I have four or five notebooks with just the first couple of pages of regular ‘entries’ and nothing more. But I think a writing routine can involve a lot more than hitting a daily or weekly word count, it may not even involve writing any words at all. I consider hikes and listening to music and reading as part of my writing process, when I do these things consciously and presently. My body, including my mind, becomes primed to absorb and reflect what my senses are telling me during these moments. Verbalizing that reflection becomes easier after that.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
The biggest influence in my writing is mysticism. Specifically Sufism, which is the Islamic tradition of mysticism. The overwhelming amount of writing produced by Sufis across the world for thousands of years has been intertwined with poetic and artistic traditions in the majority of Islamic cultures. I always draw on the words of the Sufis when I don’t know what to write or how to process an idea. Because it always works.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
I’ve written about this a few times in my first poetry book. I deal with nostalgia and home a lot in that book, and the sense of home I keep coming back to is strongly connected to scent and fragrance. I remember the smell of the living room in the house where I grew up in Pakistan, something like varnished wood and old curtains, but also something else I don’t know how to describe. It’s hard to find smells that remind me of home in a different country so a lot of my writing about that is based on the memory of the fragrance alongside the memory of the place itself.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I see what he means I guess, but I don’t like to think of it that way. Writing for me is one form of art that has to coexist with others. The creatives I admire most are creative in multiple ways, it’s only now that we’re siloing ourselves into discrete ‘disciplines’. I like to draw and play music, both of which make their way into my writing. Poetry is a mathematical activity, sometimes a scientific one. Poetry for me is tied to my religious expression concurrently with all of these other forms. Defining poetry through delimitations leads to dead ends, I think.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I’m an English Lit grad student so I study writing more than I write. My focus is on postcolonial literature, theoretical and creative, so I read a lot of Global South literature and colonial resistance fiction/poetry. I like theory and I have a lot of fun translating theoretical concepts from my research into creative pieces. Aside from these, as I say above, the most important writing I keep turning back to belongs to the mystical traditions.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I want to travel and be able to write about it. My academic focus, and creative interest, is postcolonial literature and I would like to see more places with a colonial past and connect with people there so I can write about it. And I want to meet more people on the Sufi path, to learn more from them directly.
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I don’t think I’m a writer yet, and it’s definitely not my occupation, but I want it to be a bigger part of my life. I am pursuing a career in academia, focused on literature, so my creative writing will complement my academic writing. I don’t know if I’ve had any other career ideas since I finished high school, and even then I knew I wanted to be a writer.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I started seriously writing poetry when I moved away from Pakistan. Since the beginning, my writing has been occupied with migration, belonging, identity, all those diaspora buzzwords. My poems became a way to understand that condition and respond to it as fully as possible. Alongside that, visual art has always been an emotional outlet that gives me the same way of reflecting on whatever is going on.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Sea Without Shore by Nuh Ha Meem Keller. It’s a memoir and a manual by a Sufi, describing the great mystic teachers, Sheikhs, he has met since he started out on the path, and their most important teachings. The book is an amazing journey through the mystical world and also provides a thematic guide for the major teachings. I keep revisiting this book trying to incorporate its insights into my life and my writing. The film scene is really sad nowadays, but I really enjoyed Dune Part 2. They got it right, and it’s a really tough book to get right on the screen, as past adaptations have shown. The Dune books are heavily inspired by Sufism, which most viewers don’t pick up on, but Villeneuve’s adaptation handled that part really well.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I’m writing some short stories which I plan to turn into a publishable collection. I received a grant from the OAC to work on them so that’s good motivation. I keep writing as often as I can, but my master’s research takes up a lot of my time so it’s hard to stay consistent with creative work.
