Usawa Literary Review is headquartered in Mumbai, India.
PIN Code: 400050
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Poems that witness, accuse, mourn, and resist. Work rooted in body autonomy, ecofeminism, desire, grief, exile, and decolonial reclamation - from Adivasi verse to Urdu ghazal to prison writing.
Browse by issue, by theme, or by mood - and expect to be changed by what you find.
Poems that witness, accuse, mourn, and resist. Work rooted in body autonomy, ecofeminism, desire, grief, exile, and decolonial reclamation - from Adivasi verse to Urdu ghazal to prison writing.
Browse by issue, by theme, or by mood - and expect to be changed by what you find.

Memory & Time

A curated collection

Issue 13 - Memories of the Future

All is One Here and 2 other poems

By Abrona Aden

Where being pours into another, patriarchy and contested borders divide unyielding hunger and grief: the nations cold heart beats near...

Matchbox - October '24

I Refused To Die and 2 other poems

By G.N. Saibaba

A defiant spirit kindles resilience, challenging dogmas chains from the margins, lifting loves torch toward a bright, bewildering dawn.

We Are Here: Writings by Afghan Women

Coercion

By Somaia Ramish

This poem starkly portrays coercion's bitter grip, devouring girls' dreams, a vast, unacknowledged, relentless nightmare

We Are Here: Writings by Afghan Women

With Many Hopes and 6 other poems

By Orphaned Afghan girls (ages 10-14)

From ravaged soil, a fierce promise to resurrect the homelands dreams, challenging brutal patriarchal structures, navigating profound grief and defiant,...

Matchbox - October '25

Sophocles and My Dadu and 2 other poems

By Sanjana Choudhary

Fierce Agency blossoms, reclaiming silenced memory and profound grief from systemic erasure, cradled within Homes tender heart.

We Are Here: Writings by Afghan Women

The Story in My Palms

By Beheshta Adel

These delicate hands mirror a woman's inner journey, revealing a path of self-discovery and care

We Are Here: Writings by Afghan Women

I Sleep with Silence

By Noshin Ahmadyar

From chained dreams, a daughters silent scream asserts fierce agency, navigating profound grief to breathe resilience into a wounded lands...

We Are Here: Writings by Afghan Women

Invincible

By Masoma Mohamadi

An Afghan woman's invincible spirit bravely bears war's scars and history's pain, still dreams freedom

Recently Added

Issue 15 - REFUSE

YOU, CONQUEROR

By Mugdhaa Ranade

The body, flayed and profoundly unmade, re-stitched with pervasive fear, confronts the cruel politics of control, becoming a subservient, obedient...

Issue 15 - REFUSE

Orchestra Immigrant and Saltbodies

By Michael Agunbiade

A visceral lament: Mother holds boat-wrecked child. Diaspora's ache and fractured land deny belonging, while memory slowly kills, birthing a...

Issue 15 - REFUSE

Old Dreams of Kolkata and Sum of Parts

By Apabrita Mitra Sarkar

Whispers of deeply forgotten histories echo, reclaiming narrative power from silenced spaces, navigating deep loss and resilience within the heart's...

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