Rana Tahir
Poet | Educator | Author
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Rana Tahir is a Kundiman Fellow and author of two books. She is an educator with experience teaching middle school, high school, and undergraduate courses, and received her MFA from Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR.
Born in Pakistan and raised on the beaches of Kuwait, she left home to study writing across the United States. When not at her desk preparing lesson plans, writing, or researching, she can be found jumping into lakes and rivers during long hikes, even though she always forgets a bathing suit and must sit in the car in her cold, wet clothes on the ride home. She is a Cancer sun and moon, so she never regrets being in water. She lives in Portland, OR with her husband.
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Publications
To Yesenin
Our gut has been writing poems to you.
Yesenin, if you are the heart, then
I must be the hands, following orders to
twist the knot and check the grip, for you
taught me not to ignore your calls for rope.
Resting with flowers, made
to look as though you were sleeping,
but we know how alive you were,
kicking your legs in that fanciful dance.
You should have been left hanging.
Your face, in the coffin, a stifled cry.
Heart, if you are crying now, hope is there,
for Harrison and I will join you. For now
our body, our saga, begin with a rope,
is twisting slowly, our feet
barely—
Catch Literary Magazine, Spring 2012
Tahir’s poetry and prose have been published in various literary publications and magazines such as Catch, The Interlochen Review, and Fresh! Literary Magazine.
Rana Tahir 