Staying Right Here

By Usman Hameedi

Usman Hameedi’s debut collection, Staying Right Here, is a journey in finding home. Hameedi invites readers to bear witness to vignettes of joy and hardship as he navigates finding his place in America.

From an ode to Bodegas, an autobiography of his eyebrows, and elegies for lost friends, Hameedi’s thematic metaphors for family, wellness, and American biases weave a literary tapestry.

Reading Usman’s work is like drinking a warm chai while watching the sunset in Brooklyn, or coming home to an aromatic Biryani. In his first poetry collection, Hameedi writes with an unmistakably unique voice that is not afraid of who he is.

Staying Right Here is for those who have looked for themselves in the media and only seen a one-dimensional character staring back at them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Button Poetry
• Release date: Apr 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638340621

Usman Hameedi

Usman Hameedi is a Pakistani-American scientist, poet, educator, and author of Staying Right Here (Button Poetry). He also serves on Mass Poetry’s Board of Directors. Since 2008, he has competed in and coached for collegiate, national, and international level poetry slams. He was a Mass Poetry Artist-in-Residence and worked with students in Hyde Park and Salem. Usman’s work has been featured on The Huffington Post, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and The Story Collider: Storytelling for Scientists podcast and more.

Book preview

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PRAISE FOR STAYING RIGHT HERE

Navigating the rise of American fascism after 9/11, Staying Right Here is a collection that delivers on its promise with each poem documenting the hard-won fight to find safety and stability in a world built against you. Hameedi’s debut explores intergenerational trauma, diaspora, and identity while tracing a path between Pakistan, New York City, and Boston, asking what does it mean to stay, and what must we leave behind?

—Simone Person, author of Smoke Girl

Usman Hameedi’s debut poetry collection is a complex and nuanced love letter to a place beyond place. A fierce defense of home and how that concept changes when the forces of gentrification, space, and time push to alter it. These poems provide a window into critical junctures of Hameedi’s life, where family, friends, and inspirations were first cast into their molten cores. From the vibrant Brooklyn streets that paved his childhood, to intimate moments shared with Abbu and Ammi, Hameedi illustrates with masterful clarity the heart and hustle of a young Pakistani boy’s journey from unknowing child to seasoned poet, student of the game, and faithful son. These poems deserve to be held tight, studied closely, and read like the prayers they are.

—Michael Mic Ting, 2018 Individual World

Poetry Slam Champion, author of Novelty

Usman Hameedi’s Staying Right Here is part love letter, part homage and part elegy to the cities and people we love. Full of tenderness and grief, Hameedi writes with the unflinching generosity of a poet who is holding all the people I love / as if they were glass / butterfly wings.

—Noor Hindi, author of Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow.

Staying Right Here is a resolution against not only erasure, but against colonialism in its slipperiest form; compelled self-erasure. Usman Hameedi’s poems identify resistance as an heirloom that lives in the classroom, the neighborhood deli, the mirror, a black & white photo of two lovers; it is a living thing among unwieldy ruins but, Hameedi asserts, I will be the home I need. This collection is about what we lose, what we sacrifice—yes, but also what we reclaim, what we scream, what burns its way into belonging.

—Jay Ward, author of Composition

STAYING RIGHT HERE

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STAYING RIGHT HERE

POETRY

AUTHOR: Usman Hameedi

COVER DESIGN: Talisa Almonte

AUTHOR PHOTO: Beau

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

© 2023 by Usman Hameedi

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Published by Button Poetry

Minneapolis, MN 55418 | http://www.buttonpoetry.com

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Manufactured in the United States of America

PRINT ISBN: 978-1-63834-100-0

EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-63834-062-1

AUDIOBOOK ISBN: 978-1-63834-069-0

First printing

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"There is no normal. There’s just us,

and what we do with what we’ve been given."

—KAMALA KHAN, MS. MARVEL

For anyone who couldn’t see themselves in the stories they read.

I hope my words mean something to you

and inspire you to write your own.

CONTENTS

Preface

God Bless Deli Speaks to My Gentrified Neighborhood

Part I: Home

Calculus

Heirloom

Closed Gates

NYC Sestina

Ode to Jackson Heights

Khandaan

Owed to Ms. Samuel

Waterfall

Nurture

Part II: Exodus

Erasure

Drawing

Again, Another Hurricane

Regret Is an Elaborate Puzzle

Waiting Room

Wudu

Fragile

College Admissions

Reflecting Pool

The Bullet

The Ghost of September 11th, 2001, Addresses January 6th, 2021

Part III: Homecoming

The Autobiography of My Eyebrows

Hurricanes: Revisited

Short List of Life Lessons Brought to You by World Wrestling Entertainment

Flying While Muslim. Then. Now. Probably Forever.

I’m Easily Distracted

Birthdays

The Reality of Stars

The Discography of Our Friendship

Where Are You Really From?

Part IV: Assemble

The Return

There’s No Place Like Home

It’s My Favorite Picture of Us

Building a Home

Questions During My First Zoom Lecture

Should It Stay or Go?

De-Fusion & Polymerization

Ode to the Paper Shredder

Nature

Ki Banu Duniya Da

Epilogue

Hi! My Name is Usman

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Book Recommendations from the Author

A NOTE ON POETRY E-BOOKS

You are reading a poetry e-book, which, based on the settings of your device, can result in significant changes to the original formatting as intended by the author and publisher. For the best experience reading this book, please set your device so that the following line fits entirely on one line on your screen.

Lose our sense of love, value in our traditions, pride in our languages.

STAYING RIGHT HERE

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GOD BLESS DELI SPEAKS TO MY GENTRIFIED NEIGHBORHOOD

Don’t you dare Columbus us,

call us a hidden gem, Buzzfeed us

into a new taste for unfamiliar mouths.

You cannot discover

what’s already rooted,

flourishing before you arrived.

We’ve been here:

bearded, black hair, Yemeni.

Assalamualaikum! Keif al-Hal?

Been Muslim. Still Muslim—

before, during, and after 9/11.

Always halal and

to