From the opening poem, “Chai,” Fareh Malik’s debut poetry collection Streams that Lead Somewhere whisks the reader away from the world they’re currently in where they sat down to read a poetry collection, into one where they’re instead sitting across from an old friend—perhaps even over a cup of tea—as they talk about their day.
The book tackles themes ranging from racism and Islamophobia to mental illness and loss of loved ones, but it does so in a way that feels acutely personal. The book begins with the lines, “A white man called me that same tired word / terrorist / (don’t worry, I’m used to it),” and it’s this disarmingly vulnerable quality to the narrative voice that makes the tough conversations held throughout this collection feel possible.
The poet depicts scenes of discrimination in action with such specificity and care that one can imagine these images aren’t entirely based in fiction. Many of these instances, as seen in “Sorry, Wrong Guy 1-3,” and “After 9/11 the War Spilled into Our Hometowns & Made Us Grow Up Too Fast & My Homie’s Sister Don’t Wear Her Hijab No More,” are experiences most people would probably rather forget—being called slurs, having a gun pointed at them, finding bricks thrown through mosque windows. But Malik doesn’t shy away from reflecting back on such painful experiences. In refusing to spare himself the comfort, he does not spare the reader either
—rendering us all the better for it.
Not explicitly linear in nature, Streams that Lead Somewhere reads like a mosaic of coming-of-age experiences being pieced together in the fading light of one’s formative years, at a time when you’re finally able to look back and see how all those moments informed who you would become. The story moves back and forth through time—capturing everything from the day the author was born with the poem “January 26, 1994,” to those early moments of being “othered” before you have the language to name what’s happening as depicted in “Coloured Boys in the Suburbs Are a Novelty,” to the first time you realize someone you love is suffering under a weight you cannot carry for them, as in “Depression Is As Bloody a Battle As Any.”
Malik doesn’t sugarcoat these moments of reckoning, but he does choose to find the humour in it all. During “Perks in the Melting Pot,” Malik muses that “islamophobia ain’t so bad” because he can easily get a whole booth to himself on the train just by switching out his “beanie for a kufi.” He also writes about South Asian culture and the Muslim community with such a deep sense of love and sincerity, there’s no denying that as much as this collection deals with hardship, it also makes way for hope.
The joy and the marvel of Streams that Lead Somewhere is that each time you return to it, you never quite know whether your heart will be broken or mended, but you always have the sense that you’re not alone in that experience either way as long as you’re with these pages.
Bios
Amelia Eqbal
Amelia Eqbal is a podcast producer and freelance writer based in Mississauga, ON. Passionate about theatre, sitcoms and all things pop culture, she can be found on Twitter @ameliaeqbal. [updated April 2023]