#poetry

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in The Texas Review

Nazifa Islam

Oct 26
1 min

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in The Texas Review

I have a Sylvia Plath poem in the latest issue of The Texas Review! "Sitting with Figs" was written using the well-known figs paragraph from The Bell Jar. Here is the paragraph I used with the words I selected for the poem in red: I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famou

2 views0 comments

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in The Missouri Review

Nazifa Islam

Jun 6
1 min

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in The Missouri Review

So thrilled that my poem "Death-Spot" is Poem of the Week at The Missouri Review! You can read the poem along with an artist statement here. I wrote this poem using a paragraph from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. Here is the paragraph with the words I selected in red: A morbid fear: that protests too much. To the doctor. I am going to the psychiatrist this week, just to meet him, to know he's there. And, ironically, I feel I need him. I need a father. I need a mothe

28 views0 comments

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in Tupelo Quarterly

Nazifa Islam

Mar 15
2 min

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in Tupelo Quarterly

Beyond excited to have a Sylvia Plath found poem in Tupelo Quarterly! Check out "The Feminine Experience." I used a paragraph from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath to write the poem. Here it is with the words I selected in red. Now enough factual background statement. He and I: sat in the living room, at Rahar's," at the coffee shop" and talked and did-not-talk as we pleased. He hates sitting: likes to talk walking. (N.B also) He sat next to me with his arm around me,

10 views0 comments

Sylvia Plath Found Poems in South Dakota Review

Nazifa Islam

Mar 11
4 min

Sylvia Plath Found Poems in South Dakota Review

I'm fortunate enough to have two Sylvia Plath found poems in the latest issue of the South Dakota Review! Check out "Fates" and "Heaven Is Empty." Both poems were written using paragraphs from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. Here are the paragraphs with the words I selected in red. "Fates" I have never in my life, except that deadly summer of 1953, & fall, gone through such a black lethal two weeks. I couldn't write a word about it, although I did in my head. The hor

18 views0 comments

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in Halfway Down the Stairs

Nazifa Islam

Jan 20
2 min

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in Halfway Down the Stairs

"August Night" was published by Halfway Down the Stairs this past December. Check it out! It was a rather tricky found poem to write since there weren't a lot of pronouns to work with in the source paragraph. Here is the paragraph I used from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath with the words I selected in red: Tonight, for a moment, all was at peace inside. I came out of the house-across -the-street a little before twelve, sick with unfulfilled longing, alone, self-revil

6 views0 comments

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in Invisible City

Nazifa Islam

Jan 13
2 min

Sylvia Plath Found Poem in Invisible City

"Skeptical and Inferior" appeared in Invisible City this past September. The very thoughtful editors included a short section on the writing process as well as the paragraph I used from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath to write the poem alongside the piece. You can see which words I used to write "Skeptical and Inferior" at Invisible City but I'm including the paragraph here as well with the words I used in red: Mother wrote today with a good letter of maxims; skeptica

5 views0 comments

Nazifa Islam

Jan 13
8 min

Sylvia Plath Found Poems in SAGINAW

Last summer, David Harrison Horton invited me to contribute some found poems to SAGINAW No. 9 and so the first of my Sylvia Plath found poems were introduced to the world! Read "I Wanted a Nice Life," "Wanting," "Soft Blossoms," "Spring," "Tongue-Shy," "Some Sleep Is Bleak," and "No Solace" here. David was kind enough to nominate "Wanting" for a Pushcart Prize later in 2021. All seven of these poems were written using paragraphs from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. T

1 view0 comments

Nazifa Islam

Jan 13
1 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in Zoeglossia

Stephanie Heit was kind enough to invite me to contribute to Zoeglossia's January Poem of the Week series! Zoeglossia—a community for poems with disabilities—published "The Middle of Alone," a poem from Forlorn Light: Virginia Woolf Found Poems, alongside stellar poems by Stephanie, Roxanna Bennett, and Airea D. Matthews. You can read and/or listen to me reading "The Middle of Alone" here. Here is the a paragraph from The Waves that I used to write "The Middle of Alone" with

1 view0 comments

Nazifa Islam

Jun 19, 2021
1 min

RHINO Reads: Kathy Davis + Nazifa Islam

I'm participating in a RHINO Reads Online event on June 25th at 5pm PT! I'll be reading alongside poet and nonfiction writer Kathy Davis. Register for the reading today to join us for poems and some craft talk! I'm looking forward to seeing you there! #poetry #events #readingseries

17 views0 comments

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in Blood Orange Review

Nazifa Islam

May 22, 2021
1 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in Blood Orange Review

So pleased to share that I have a Virginia Woolf found poem in the new issue of Blood Orange Review! You can both read "The Playing-Field" and listen to me reading it online. Small fun fact: I pulled the title of my Woolf found poems collection from this poem. Here is the a paragraph from The Waves that I used to write "The Playing-Field" with the words I selected in red: 'Now we move out of this cool temple, into the yellow playing-fields,' said Louis. 'And, as it is a half-

11 views0 comments

Nazifa Islam

May 10, 2021
2 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in RHINO

I feel very fortunate to have a Virginia Woolf found poem in RHINO 2021! This is a print journal so you'll have to wait for Forlorn Light: Virginia Woolf Found Poems to be released this summer by Shearsman Books to read "Fortunes." This is the last Woolf found poem I wrote (over a year ago) before sitting down and arranging all my Woolf poems into a collection. In what's basically a half-baked preview, here is the paragraph I used from The Waves to write the "Fortunes" with t

15 views0 comments

Nazifa Islam

Feb 19, 2021
1 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in Aquifer

I figured it's better to share good news late than never: I had a Woolf found poem published in Aquifer: The Florida Review Online last month! You can check the poem out online now. Here is the paragraph I used from The Waves to write "Another day"; the words I selected are in red: 'I hate darkness and sleep and night,' said Jinny, 'and lie longing for the day to come. I long that the week should be all one day without divisions. When I wake early—and the birds wake me—I lie

22 views0 comments

Nazifa Islam

Sep 15, 2020
4 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poems in Dreginald

I'm excited to share that I have five Virginia Woolf found poems in issue twenty of Dreginald! Four of these poems are from The Waves and one is from Mrs. Dalloway. Here are the four poems taken from The Waves' paragraphs, with each poem title paired with its paragraph and the words I used for each poem in red: "Before the Wave" 'All my ships are white,' said Rhoda. 'I do not want red petals of hollyhocks or geranium. I want white petals that float when I tip the basin up. I

41 views0 comments

A Painting and "The Birds" Poems in Entropy

Nazifa Islam

Aug 20, 2020
3 min

A Painting and "The Birds" Poems in Entropy

I'm excited to share that I have four poems and a painting in Entropy! The poems are all part of Entropy’s “The Birds” series and they're accompanied by an abstract black-and-white painting of mine: “#58.” It would be swell if you could take some time to check out all the art. I wrote “The Seagull” a few years after graduating with my MFA. It was a relief to write. I’d been completely tapped out creatively for months and months and then one random afternoon, “The Seagull” cam

42 views0 comments

Nazifa Islam

Aug 18, 2020
2 min

Wild and Precious Life Series

This is very likely news I should have announced many weeks earlier, but life happened or maybe laziness happened—for the sake of appearances, I’m going to go with “life happened”—and I did not get around to posting about a very cool opportunity I was fortunate enough to be a part of a couple weeks ago. I was invited by the lovely Dustin Brookshire to participate in the Wild and Precious Life Series, a virtual reading series that has been going strong for months now. It offer

9 views0 comments

Nazifa Islam

Jul 1, 2020
4 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poems in DIAGRAM

I have long wanted to have poems published in DIAGRAM. It's such a great journal and I've always thought that the work they publish is perpetually innovative, remarkable, and really interesting. After a few bouts of submitting, I'm finally fortunate enough to have two Virginia Woolf Found Poems in Issue 20.3! Check out "She Admired the Dark" and "Us"! What makes this publication all the better for me is that my found poems are published alongside two poems from one of my very

43 views0 comments

Virginia Woolf Found Poems in The Journal

Nazifa Islam

Jun 26, 2020
2 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poems in The Journal

I'm so excited to share that two of my Virginia Woolf found poems have found a home in the 44.2 Spring 2020 issue of The Journal! Check out "Brim and Break" and "Seized Up." I believe all writers have (out of their own work) favorite poems. "Brim and Break" is one of my absolute favorites out of the seventy-ish Viriginia Woolf found poems I've written at this point. The source paragraph I used for it is one of the shortest I've worked with, and it was really gratifying to see

62 views0 comments

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in The Indianapolis Review

Nazifa Islam

May 1, 2020
2 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in The Indianapolis Review

I'm pretty excited to kick off the month with a publication. "Everything Is Clear" is in the Spring 2020 issue of The Indianapolis Review! In terms of providing commentary on the bipolar experience, this poem is much more about mania than depression. Mania can be a pretty lovely change from the depression that defines most of my bipolar episodes. Obviously, it can go really awry—especially the longer you're stuck in a manic phase—but it does often feel like a respite from the

25 views0 comments

Nazifa Islam

Mar 27, 2020
1 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in Figure 1

My found poem "This Is Us" was published by Figure 1 just a couple days ago. I very deliberately picked the paragraph for this poem; I wanted a paragraph that had a lot of "we"s in it. So a search for a "we"-heavy paragraph led me to the following paragraph from The Waves—the words I selected are in red: "'Now we have fallen through the tree-tops to the earth. The air no longer rolls its long, unhappy, purple waves over us. We touch earth; we tread ground. That is the close-c

6 views0 comments

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in Queen Mob's Teahouse

Nazifa Islam

Mar 27, 2020
1 min

Virginia Woolf Found Poem in Queen Mob's Teahouse

My found poem "I Know Permanence" was published by Queen Mob's Teahouse earlier this month! Here is the paragraph I used from The Waves with the selected words in red: "'It is true, and I know for a fact,' said Bernard, 'as we walk down this avenue, that a King, riding, fell over a molehill here. But how strange it seems to set against the whirling abysses of infinite space a little figure with a golden teapot on his head. Soon one recovers belief in figures: but not at once

26 views0 comments