On Australian Poet Maryam Azam's Hijab Files

Claire Nichols writes about poet Maryam Asam's new poetry collection for ABC News's arts section, The Hub on Books. The Hijab Files, Asam's collection, is all about her experience wearing the garment. "For the poet Maryam Azam, the experience of wearing the hijab can mean many different things," Nichols explains. "At times the headscarf is soft and sensuous. At others, it's a symbol of power." From there: 

The Western Sydney poet was inspired to write about her own experience of wearing the hijab after exploring the representation of hijabi women in contemporary poetry for a university honours project.

"What I noticed was that women who wear the hijab or the niqab, or any kind of Islamic veiling, tended to be represented in very much orientalised terms," she says.

"It was the typical, repressed woman, silenced, without a voice."

The poetry was a source of frustration for Azam, who found that most people writing about the hijab had never worn one.

"Being a hijab wearer myself, I found these representations really disempowering," she says.

"The idea that they were painting about the experiences of these hijab-wearing women was totally alien to me."

So she decided to write some poetry of her own.

Read more at ABC's Hub on Books.