Featured Poem: Shakespeare Was Punjabi by Mehnaz Turner

12 April 2010
Featured Poem: Shakespeare Was Punjabi by Mehnaz Turner
SHAKESPEARE WAS PUNJABI

      On a visit to Lahore
            my uncle tells me
Shakespeare was Punjabi.

      Reclined on the porch,
            I am scribbling a poem
in my lavender notebook.

      Get it, he says
            laughingly, tracing letters
through the air,

      Sheikh-peare?
            For an hour he sits
beside me to watch the rain,

      recites Urdu ghazals
            about trusting one’s
own heart. Later

      over tea, I talk
            about life in Los Angeles:
how I hate dissecting

      frogs in lab class,
            how my G.P.A.
cartwheels out of balance.

      I love literature though,
            I say. I want to become
a teacher. The next day

      he buys me a slim
            book of Omar Khayyam
quatrains. Scribbles,

      presented to my dear niece,
            on the first page. Freshman year
in college, I read

      Khayyam’s poems
            in my dorm room, record
one on my answering

      machine as a substitute
            for please leave a message.
My first literature class

      in Tucson, the university
            lecture hall is packed
with pale faces,

      Norton anthologies,
            and ball-point pens— but
spotting Shakespeare

      on the reading list, I taste
            Lahore on my tongue, see a flash
of my uncle’s grin.





Mehnaz Turner was born in Pakistan and raised in southern California. She is a 2009 PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellow in poetry and her poem "The Bibliophile" was a finalist for Sundress Press' 2009 Best of the Net Anthology. Her story, "The Alphabet Workbook," is forthcoming in the August 2010 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. She holds degrees from the University of Arizona, The University of Texas at Austin, and UC Santa Barbara. Her poems have appeared in publications such as The Journal of Pakistan Studies, Cahoots Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine, Desilit Magazine, and An Anthology of California Poets. She has been teaching at Moorpark High School since Fall 2006. To learn more about Mehnaz, visit her blog/website at http://www.mehnazturner.blogspot.com.
Related Opportunities:
Ranked: 500 highest-paying publications for freelance writers
The Freelance 500 Report (2015 Edition, 138 pages) profiles the highest-paying markets, ranked to help you decide which publication to query first. The info and links in this report are current. Details here.