In a Name: Hanif Abdurraqib Reads Khadijah Queen's I'm So Fine

At the New Yorker, Hanif Abdurraqib reads Khadijah Queen's latest, I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men and What I Had On, after encountering her poem "Any Other Name" in the journal Poor Claudia. For Abdurraqib, the poem "speaks of origin and the ways in which a name can bring pride and power to the owner." Let's pick up there: 

“Khadijah means wife of the prophet,” Queen writes, in the version published in the journal. “Nothing about my name is casual. Your mouth has to make an effort.” She delights in this difficulty for a moment, then pivots, unravelling the rest of the poem slowly. “I cut off my hair / because I wanted to begin again / with something on my body / no man has touched.” How to approach a difficult-to-pronounce name becomes a metaphor for how to maintain a sense of self in a difficult world.

“Any Other Name” appears, with slight changes, as a postscript in Queen’s stunning fifth book, “I’m So Fine: A List of Famous Men and What I Had On,” which was published earlier this year. The title is literal: The book is a collection of several short stories about Queen’s interactions with men, woven together into a single narrative. Though most of the men are famous—Arsenio Hall, Tupac, Montell Jordan—each encounter feels ordinary, familiar. This place, with these men, could be anywhere.

Read more at the New Yorker.