For this episode we’re delighted to share with you a recording of Asiya Wadud reading from her latest collection of poetry, Mandible Wishbone Solvent alongside a manuscript-in-progress, titled: Any Want Rings The Circle.

The reading took place at rile*books on the 12 of October 2024.

Mandible Wishbone solvent was published by the university of Chicago press earlier this year. The poems and prose in the collection engage with migration, climate change, race, sexuality, and art— though not necessarily in tha t order. Punctuated by images of Asiya’s own original art, offers an indirect meditation on the concepts of the drift and the isthmus ("An isthmus— passageway, a threshold, a deliverance.

Asiya Wadud is a poet based in brooklyn and the author of 5 collections of poetry: Mandible Wishbone Solvent from this year, No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body 2021, A filament in gold leaf and Syncope both from 2019 and Crosslight for a young bird from 2018. She has also been published Interlude Docs, POETRY, e-flux journal, BOMB Magazine and elsewhere. She teaches poetry at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, New York and Pacific Northwest College of Art.

After the reading we opened the floor to questions from the audience. For technical reasons the audio quality of the questions is not ideal but we wanted to anyway include the conversation in the podcast so we hope you can excuse the slight glichtes in the audio towards the end.

We hope you enjoy listening!