Tabassam Shah ’96
Alumnae Poet
Tabassam Shah is a Southeastern Pennsylvania poet, educator, and activist who centers eco-poetics, social justice, and sense of place in her writing. 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 BerksBards, based in Reading. A Highlights Foundation scholarship recipient, Tabassam is working on picture books about Pakistani American childhood.
Select Poems
In this droplet of time
Is my mother’s laughter
She put an end to today’s Quran 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.
Published in Tabassam Shah, Red & Crescent Moons (The Watershed Journal Literary Group, 2022).
Born in innocence to help us see
A child of asylum
in her paperboard home
decorates the paper walls with drawings
of her family, cats and smiling flowers
she sharpens her pencil
with the edges of a key to a house
that no longer exists
a permanent smell of brass on her hands
her child fist grips the pencil
like it’s her last one
she draws a rainbow
adorning a canopy of trees
birds happily rest on branches
heavily laden with fruit and nuts
she radiates rays out of an ebullient sun
with her broad, soft strokes
she isn’t a tiktok or reel
she is your daughter, your grandchild, your niece
the next Malala
perhaps her artistry helps us see
the world as it should be