The Heat Yesterday

James Deahl is co-publisher of Mekler & Deahl Publications and the
author of Under the Watchful Eye.

Rashid’s poetry deals with disorientation and rootlessness in a social
world where only the physical body seems to have retained meaning. The
writing is at once erotic and cool. A member of the
East-Indian/East-African diaspora, Rashid seems cut off from his
geographical home, his religion, and his family; the reader finds him
drifting between Canada and England, immersed in, but not connected to,
a white European world he can never really feel at home in.

The book is also based on the confusion many people feel about gender
and sexual orientation. These uncertainties are evoked when an
East-Indian woman tells Rashid, “If you are Muslim, you can not be
what you are.” The poet counters this statement by directing his
readers to “Remember who you are.” He also remarks “You are what
you were.” But exactly who are you and what were you? These are the
issues Rashid struggles with but cannot resolve.

What makes a book that reflects such intense alienation bearable is the
beauty of the poetry, the grace and lightness of the lines. Rashid’s
poems and prose-poems live within the tension created by the need to
belong and the reality of having nothing to belong to. They are highly
personal poems that gain strength by dealing with matters of public
interest. It is hard to feel comfortable after reading this book, but it
is both well written and important as a post-colonial text.