The BreakBeat Poets Volume 3

April 1, 2019
With the reverberations of walls and illegals bouncing off every news outlet, the third volume in the Breakbeat Poets series launched by poet Kevin Coval, editors Fatimah Asghar (If They Come for Us, 2018) and Safia Elhillo (The January Children, 2017) showcase poems that readily refute stereotypes, lies, xenophobia, and hate. Their anthology is a literary home for the Muslim community and a platform for female voices. As political debates rage over immigration policies and racism abounds, the poets in Halal respond with more thoughtful and resonant messages that speak to humanity in all of her beautiful shades. Organized into five sections honoring Muslim customs, these poems and prose pieces are brash, youthful, and colloquial, and readers do not have to be Muslim or female to comprehend and appreciate them. These politically aware, culturally rich, and socially conscious works speak to the greater good in all of its revealing variety: Muslim. Pakistani. Kashmiri. American. Queer. Lower-class. Femme. Orphan. Sometimes woman. Sometimes man. Sometimes neither. Disposable. A vibrant and invaluable masterpiece of plurality.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)