Editor-in-Chiefs' Note: From the problematization and appropriation of eroticized desire to the unrequited longing for self-determination and national liberation, it is often the voices of those most marginalized that are also the ones most ignored—if not deliberately erased from public discourse. Building on our journal’s mission of challenging dominant narratives and empowering diverse perspectives, for Columbia Journal of Asia’s first poetry night, we welcomed three faculty speakers, Aftah Akbari, Sarah Wong, and Ade Khan, to present and discuss on the theme “Marginalized Voices on Longing and Desire.” The chosen theme seeks to question whose voice gets to be heard and legitimized, and how voice intersects with agency, longing, and the power to imagine and actualize otherwise.
On March 28th, 2025, the Columbia Journal of Asia held a poetry night event on the theme "Marginalized Voices on Longing and Desire," inviting faculty and student speakers to share original or selected pieces. Editorial member Melanie Zhang and the Board recount some of their most meaningful takeaways.
Poetry Night Speaker List:
Faculty Speakers:
- Atefeh Akbari (English, Barnard): Atefeh Akbari received her PhD in English and Comparative Literature, with an Advanced Certificate in Comparative Literature and Society, from Columbia University in 2019. Her current book project, From the Caspian to the Caribbean [working title], is a cross-cultural comparison of mid to late-twentieth-century Iranian and Caribbean fiction and poetry.
- Sarah Wong (English, Barnard): Sarah is a writer, editor, and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Barnard whose writing focuses on mass incarceration, psychoanalysis, surveillance, and colonized bodies. She’s currently finishing a novel that examines the immigrant experience through plastic surgery, hair transplants, and the body as a site of both physical and psychological displacement.
- Ade Khan (Creative Writing, Columbia): Ade Khan is a writer and lecturer in creative writing at Columbia. She recently completed her MFA in nonfiction, where she also served as the online columns editor for the Columbia Journal. She has taught courses on writing nonfiction in all forms—from reportage to personal essays—including work that engages with marginalized perspectives.
Student Speakers:
- Isabel Andreatta CC‘26, on behalf of Dr. Vinh Nguyen (East Asian Language and Culture, Columbia); Tara Isabel Lago CC‘28; Jun Hong GS’26; Cara Wreen CC‘27; Claire He CC‘28
The first part of the event was kickstarted by our faculty speakers: Dr. Atefeh Akbari, Sarah Wong, and Ade Khan. They guided the audience through an emotional journey spanning from the politically tumultuous 1960s Iran, all the way to the fiery student protests of modern-day Bangladesh. Each performance was unique in style and context, yet all converged on themes of desire, marginalization, and transcendence. By the end of the night, I was deeply moved by the ineffable but powerful struggles and yearnings that resonate across diverse cultures and histories.
Professor Akbari opened the night by introducing the poetry of Forough Farrokhzad (1935–1967), one of Iran’s most revolutionary and feminist modern poets. Reading from Farrokhzad’s poems—including the “Sin” and the visionary “Another Birth”—Professor Akbari illuminated how this mid-20th-century poet redefined femininity, desire, and morality under the dual pressures of colonial modernity and traditional Islamic conservatism. “I sinned a sin full of pleasure / in an embrace that was warm and fiery,” it is clear that through Farrokhzad’s poetic voice, she was a pioneer for her frank depiction of eroticism and defiant individuality.
Through Professor Akbari’s introduction, these verses became a bold declaration of a woman claiming her desire in a society that was determined to police it. As Akbari explained, Farrokhzad argued for the spiritual depth of erotic desire, suggesting that physical love could carry existential meaning. For example, Farrokhzad refused to accept the dichotomy of “pure” versus “sinful,” writing, “this is about…the burnt poppies of your kiss / the intimacy of our bodies… / the iridescence of our nakedness” (Farrukhzād, 2022, 5). Through such imagery, Farrokhzad elevated erotic love to the level of the sublime, turning sin into a source of creative power and spiritual rebellion. Professor Akbari further contextualized these poems within Farrokhzad’s tragic life: she divorced young, lost custody of her son, faced censure for her affairs, and even spent time in a mental asylum. In the face of these hardships, poetry became both a means of liberation and a source for intensified social backlash. Under Akbari’s guidance, we came to see Farrokhzad as a “perpetual rebellion,” who ultimately turned her longing into liberation. By the end of the poetry reading, I could imagine Farrokhzad smoking a cigarette in a dimly lit room, writing licentiously forbidden verses under the gentle embrace of a warm lamp, casting her words like a dare to a duel against both the westernized elite and the strict moralists of her world.
Following Professor Akbari was Professor Sarah Wang, who shifted the tone of the night to a sombre yet deeply personal direction. In a decision made just before her presentation, she chose to change the piece she had planned to recite, granting us the rare privilege of hearing an original, unpublished work read aloud to an audience for the very first time.
The piece she presented was composed through the process of “blackout poetry,” in which existing text is redacted or erased to produce a new narrative. In this case, Wang used the 2014 Isla Vista Mass Shooter’s manifesto as her source material. Her bold engagement with blackout poetry created a powerful act of subversion, transforming a document of hatred into a feminist and empowering expression of personal voice. In fact, as poignantly expressed by Wang, it was often the most hateful passages that yielded the most subversive and powerful lines. What struck me the most about the source material was how uncomfortable it felt to recognize the proximity between the shooter’s profile (that of a twenty-two-year-old, Asian-American, mixed-race, university student) and aspects of our own community. How do we confront the heinous and misogynistic acts he committed in the face of uncanny familiarity? Sitting in that discomfort, Wang performed what felt like a confessional piece, exploring subjects on motherhood, womanhood, immigration, body, and trauma. Slow and meditative, her words filled the room and quietly took over the space, commanding attention through a vulnerable intimacy I had not experienced before.
The final speaker, Professor Ade Khan, concluded our faculty segment by bringing us to the streets of Bangladesh and into the swarms of student protests. In this setting, Ade Khan invogorated us for the longing for justice, for dignity, for a better country, as Khan’s poetry invoked multitudes of red. In contemporary Bangladeshi movement/protest culture, red has been the color for both rage and remembrance: it is the blood on the streets when demonstrations turn deadly, but also the color protesters have worn in mourning. At one point, Khan described the haunting image of a person holding a wooden stick to confront the armed soldiers. By the time Ade Khan finished, I had realized that I had been holding my breath. Her words of the martyrs, the letter to the local police, and the longing for liberation deeply impassioned us. I could vividly see the scene in the streets, in slogans and letters, in the very color red. I have never felt more deeply the urgency of unheard voices crying out for justice than I did in that moment. I never felt more respect for those “audacious enough to dream about an alternative.”
Violence was a theme that repeatedly and pervasively arose in all three of our faculty speakers’ presentations. Why, perhaps, is something worth thinking about. One possible answer is that to marginalize is inherently a violent act, enacted and maintained through structures that employ means of violence. To challenge such a system and to empower marginalized voices—that too can be considered a violent act, as it necessitates force to challenge said structures. However, although it is easy to look at violence and dwell on the suffering it has produced, in reflection of tonight’s readings, I would like to propose that we can turn it into a rally for change. What else could be more powerful than reclaiming control by transforming violence into a means for self-expression, trauma reconciliation, connection, education, and narrative revisionism.
With the faculty segment concluded, the students took to the stage, exploring widely diverse perspectives on what “longing,” “desire,” and “marginalized voice” may mean.
Isabel Andreatta brought us into a mystic ballroom in Vietnam, a dreamlike space of queer and trans longing through the poem “Tears of the Sea” by Tạ Thái, originally translated and kindly provided by Professor Nguyễn Quốc Vinh (EALAC, Columbia). This poem creates a lush and surreal atmosphere where the line between reality and dream blurs. The ballroom became a space vibrant with homoerotic desire, community longing, and acceptance, contrasted sharply against the harsh realities outside. In conversation with the poem, Isabel introduced and reinterpreted the paintings of Lê Phổ (1907–2001) by creating parallels between the homosocial spaces of women’s boudoir and the powerful communal bonds created in queer spaces. They had joy in finding a space of acceptance, yet the sorrow at the fragility of that safety—this poem encapsulates this emotional duality. Ultimately, Isabel’s interpretation enabled us to understand the queer longing in Vietnam, showing both the joy and sadness inherent in the search for belonging.
Tara Isabel Lago’s poem “Nawa Bakunawa” explored desire through the story of the Bakunawa from Philippine mythology, a dragon who consumed six of the seven existing moons and often attempts to consume the seventh, resulting in lunar eclipses. The speaker directly addresses the Bakunawa, asking when its seemingly infinite appetite will be satiated. Although it is usually portrayed as a fearsome and powerful creature, the speaker sees something strikingly tragic in the Bakunawa’s endeavor: it eats and eats in abundance, and yet never stops hungering. In this way, even when united with the object of its desire, longing might gluttonously demand more, always reaching for what is just outside of its grasp. During the open mic, Tara read her poem in its original Tagalog and provided an English translation; she then reflected briefly on the act of writing in Tagalog as a diasporic poet. In a time when indigenous languages in the Philippines face ongoing challenges and erosion, the choice to learn and nurture one’s language is both personally meaningful and politically significant. Furthermore, like any language, Tagalog offers its own rich, unique nuances. For instance, the word buwan used in the poem can mean both “moon” and “month.” Ultimately, Tara’s poem reminds us that, like the Bakunawa, longing will never be enough.
Jun Hong read “Your Lipstick,” an original piece that draws on the experiences of a recent heartbreak, exploring the emotional turbulence triggered by “your lipstick” left on the bedside table. A phantasmatic haunting of love and regret, the piece encapsulates the disorienting experience of recollecting fragmented memories by thrusting the audience in a back-and-forth between past and present. What was most memorable from Hong’s piece was his spoken word performance, engaging in an interrogative one-person dialogue, further highlighting the noticeable absence of “you.” Hong’s performance was also inspired by hip-hop, a meaningful example of how intersectionality between African-American and Asian-American cultural practices can expand arts’ emotional resonance of personal experience. For instance, by borrowing from the melodic cadence and witty word play found in hip hop, the piece was able to both entertain and disturb the audience, lulling us, grabbing us, and keeping us on the edge of our seats. Catharsis finally came at the final scene, as the narrator ultimately decided to throw away the lipstick—and with it, the grief of a destructive relationship.
“If they gave PhDs for dropping hints, you would be a doctorate
A monolith, a god at it... While I would be the opposite
'Cause shit, I couldn't flirt, I must've looked like a jerk
But you thought that was cute, so you went on and made it work.” - Excerpt from Jun Hong’s “Your Lipstick"
Cara Wreen read “Wavelength // Waveless” by Jessica Kim, a poem that explores the grief of a Korean American daughter confronting her mother’s cancer diagnosis from across the world. The narrator hides behind logic and research in an attempt to make sense of her fear. The poem moves between kitchens, hospital rooms, and childhood memories by the sea, where language and distance deepen the disconnection between mother and daughter. Grief is layered with imagery of salt, water, and decay, as the narrator searches for love in absence and survival in inevitability. Wreen’s reading captured the emotional distance and quiet longing that shape the narrator’s relationship to both her memories and mother.
Claire He shared two original pieces with great passion and captivating performance, closing our poetry night on a successful note.
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References
Farrukhzād, Furūgh. 2022. Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season: Selected Poems. Translated by Elizabeth T. Gray. New York, NY: A New Directions Paperbook Original.