Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight: Jaia Hamid Bashir
This monthly series features poems by women of color in the early stages of their publishing careers. It is our intention to create more space at Perugia for the work of poets who are Black, Indigenous, and women of color (BIWOC). We hope using our platform to highlight this work will expand the readership of the poets we spotlight. This series aligns with Perugia’s mission to celebrate and support emerging women poets, inclusive of gender-expansive identities; featured poems will be from poets with no more than one published full-length collection. We’d love to hear from readers with suggestions for poems & poets to feature.
January 2026 Poet: Jaia Hamid Bashir
The Waiters
Blued rags in my hands. We eat
shooed seconds of half-gods—
under each plate, quarter moons
hide before glow. In the parking lot
after bleached tables, we gaze over
rainbows, outerglint on asphalt,
from the gas station. Holding fires
to purple mouths—a strike of a momentary beauty.
With tired hands, generous still
-to-smooth waves—we are each other's
tangled hair in nets. In the tight embrace
of no embers, no control over light.
Undoing my unlovely ponytail, caught dark
hair freed into directions of clocked-out air—
there are no borders. In your palms softening
your name over callus in Nastaliq.
Source
Desire/Halves, Nine Syllables Press, 2024
Poet Bio
Jaia Hamid Bashir is the author of The Afterlife of Sweetness (Ohio State University Press, 2026) and the chapbook Desire/Halves (Nine Syllables, 2024). The daughter of Pakistani artists, she has published poetry in POETRY Magazine, The American Poetry Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Narrative, and journals across the United States and internationally. In addition, she has published speculative fiction in Black Warrior Review and is forthcoming in Nimrod Journal. She is the winner of the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize and the Ralph Hamilton Editors’ Prize from Rhino Poetry. She has been honored by the Gloria Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, the Leonard Cohen Poetry Prize, and the Best of the Net award. A graduate of Columbia University, she lives in Utah with her husband. She will be a visiting poet at Westminster University in 2026.