United States
Ashley Somwaru is an Indo-Caribbean woman who was born and raised in Queens, New York. She received an MFA in poetry from Queens College, City College of New York. Somwaru has published a chapbook in 2021 titled, “Urgent \\ Where the Mind Goes \\ Scattered" with Ghostbird Press. Previous work has been published in A Gathering Together, Angime, Peach Velvet Magazine, No, Dear Magazine, Newtown Literary, Solstice Magazine, Pacific Review, VIDA Review, Kithe, and elsewhere. She is currently the Assistant Editor at Best of the Net.
"Sakhiya, if we forget our songs and stories / who will we become?" Poet, translator, and memoirist Rajiv Mohabir reminds us in Cutlish. The symbol of the cutlish/cutlass/machete scattered throughout these poems attaches itself to the violent history of indentured slavery in Guyana, discrimination against the Indo-Caribbean community due to hegemonic beliefs, and the removal...
Nonfiction/Hybrid work from Ashley Somwaru
Three Poems by Ashley Somwaru: "There are Bodies We Wished to Have Seen Before the Camphor Was Placed on Their Mouths" "It’s 4 AM and I Can’t Sleep Because My Brother and His Friends are Stomping Night’s" "I Recognize" Dream Night’s Dream Night’s
Experimental poetry by Ashley Somwaru: "Pure Is"
A poem by Ashley Somwaru. "saw machine : buzzing off a hand : my father's/ cassettes tangled : unwound memory : milk choking..."
Two poems by Ashley Somwaru: To Mother Unsaved and Women Crossing Lines. Poetry that questions gender roles in the Indo-Caribbean society. Inspiration is based on passed down stories and enchantment.
Nonfiction article exploring religion, racism, and gender in India and the Caribbean. I never understood why Kali Ma was shoved in the back of my father's altar, behind the fair goddesses. Wasn't she the Hindu Goddess who protected her children? Why did her tongue hanging out of her mouth and her pitch-black skin attract the words "possession," "evil," or "shame?"
Poem by Ashley Somwaru: "From Sugar Canes and Pages"
An Indo-Carib couple's tale: When pursuing dreams give way to raising a family in NYC Over the static of creaking through the radio and while soaking chicken in lime water, my mother purses her lips as she racks her brain, trying to find a good enough answer to why she came to New York.
Che Guevara, the iconic revolutionary who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution, gazes sternly from beneath his military beret on the front of a battered three-peso note, which is worth about 11 cents in United States currency.