Daughter of the Mountains: poems of heartbreak & homecoming

by Fatimah Asghar

A tender, searching collection of poems that breaks open notions of faith to ask how a daughter, alienated from kin, can find love and a home in the world, from the award-winning author of If They Come for Us and When We Were Sisters

at the edge of an edge
is an edge. at that edge
is a cliff. beyond that cliff
is me.

Exiled from ancestral homelands, how can one find a place for themself in the world? In this stunning sophomore collection, the acclaimed poet Fatimah Asghar unweaves residual grief to reckon with their relationship to Allah, long-estranged but deeply loved kin, the landscape of their ancestors, and love itself.

In meditative poems, Daughter of the Mountains grapples with multiple facets of fulfillment, betrayal, love, loss, and longing, illustrating how place, lineage, and environment inform the practice of spirituality and vice versa. With wisps of humor, imagery that is as beautiful as it is startling, and powerfully disruptive formal invention, this is an intimately lyrical and explosive collection.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

Published July 7, 2026

About the author

Poet, screenwriter, educator, and performer Fatimah Asghar is a Pakistani, Kashmiri, Muslim American writer. She is the author of the poetry collection If They Should Come for Us and the chapbook After. She is also the writer and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated Brown Girls, a web series that highlights friendships between women of color. Her work has been featured on news outlets such as PBS, NPR, Time, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, and others.

Reviews

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems of homeland and family and love lost.

This is a fairly wide-ranging collection, drifting from mountain yearnings to observations on history and homeland to more maybe more expected reflections on relationships that have seen better days.

My favourite pieces here are about homeland and history, my favourite lines about yearning for the mountains. The poem [the women in my family] talks about names lost to time: women's names, that is; only the winds & only the mountains / keep them. we've forgotten the names, writes Asghar (24*). This year I sat down with my in-laws and asked for as much family history, as many names, as they could tell me; the men's names stretched back generations, but the women's names (many of which had been changed in marriage, anyway) had been lost to time. (One of those things that transcends culture, I think: Men's names hang on and women's names drop off the page.)

Another poem, [other life], tells itself in reverse, and if I'm going to pick apart one of these poems on my own time it's going to be this one—I love a bit of structural play in poetry, a bit of the unexpected. The poems about romance (and romance lost) didn't work as well for me, less because of facility with language and more because those are themes I see a lot of in contemporary poetry, but the range here means that a lot of readers will find something of interest.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

[Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sealey Challenge 2026: 5/31

Actual Rating 3.5/5

As a big fan of Fatimah Asghar's poetry, I had been eagerly anticipating this collection! It certainly delivered when it came to the power of their prose. Asghar's language remained vulnerable and biting, particularly in their explorations of grief, heartbreak, longing, and the many moments of reflection and questioning they take us along for. There are quite a few poems here that I found exceptional, each demonstrating the beautiful writing and sharp commentary that initially endeared me to their work.

Where the collection fell short for me, however, was in its overall structure. Although the individual poems are often great, the collection itself didn't come together as a cohesive whole. The sequencing of poems felt uneven, with shifts in emotional intensity and themes that occasionally disrupted the momentum of the reading experience for me. This included some odd stylistic devices that I couldn't quite understand the purpose or importance of in the poems themselves - especially with some of the repetitive poems! Additionally, the divisions between sections sometimes felt arbitrary to me. Several explored similar ideas without creating a clear sense of progression or development through the collection as a whole which again left me questioning why it was organized in such a way. Ultimately, I think a different arrangement of the poems could have deepened the emotional impact of this kind of heavier collection.

[Melody Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another strong collection from Fatimah Asghar. Asghar’s poetry digs deep into identity, reckoning with place and belief in remarkable ways. I am biased toward poetry that is relatable while also playing with language in interesting ways. Most of Asghar’s poems fit this mold; they are particularly adept at manipulating form, even more so than ITCFU. I’m trying to avoid sounding like a whiny culture-less white American, but I found this collection a bit less “approachable” as If They Come For Us (and here I add my self-centered complaint that I would give anything for poems about particular events/places/people to come with epigraphs; only one in this particular collection does). Inevitably, one walks away from Asghar’s work with more questions and interest in issues like partition; I can’t fault them for this, certainly. Overall, a worthwhile collection. There are some truly outstanding poems here. Some of my favorites include…

[from]
- Their command of form!

[when i say]
- Master of structure.

[february in lahore]
- A love poem, especially these lines:
“oh, Allah, bring me to them, another
one i can love for a little while longer, in this world where
they bomb, where they gun, where they end, where another
child is called a martyr & those that could stop it looked away.
in this world where we’re taught to fear, to flee, to fight another
at the end, i want nothing more than you—an other,
you, another moment, another who i chose, another
who i walk with. fill my cup with another.
& when that’s done, another, again.”

[when we thought the world would end]
- A pandemic poem for now.

[here we are]
- Humanity in her terrible paradoxes.

[cursed]
- That opening, man:
“point one finger
& three turn back to you
the saying goes, so i’ll
point my whole fucking
hand, open-palmed & up
to Allah, like what do you
want me to do with this
little bitch you made?”

[& what a miracle]
- About bodies, beautifully universal.

[you]
- A fitting ending, my favorite poem of the entire collection.

*ARC via NetGalley

[Ally Ang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to One World and NetGalley for the ARC.
Fatimah Asghar was one of my first favorite poets when I was first falling in love with poetry, before they had even published their debut, so I have been long awaiting and highly anticipating their sophomore poetry collection. There is a lot to love and admire in this expansive collection, which traverses borders and generations, exploring themes from familial (re)connection to colonial violence & erasure to apocalypse & pandemic to moving through heartbreak & rage and so much more. This expansiveness, while rich and abundant, also works to the book's detriment in my opinion--I felt that the first three sections of the book were far stronger and more formally and thematically compelling than the last two, and I felt that this book may have functioned better and felt more cohesive as two separate collections. But a life is rarely cohesive and easily categorizable, so I respect the decision to structure the book this way. Overall, I really enjoyed this collection, and certain poems (such as [from] and [museum]) are ones that I will return to, study, and teach for a long time.

[2raccoonsinacoat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was evocative and edgy but, ultimately, I struggled to resonate with it. I don’t think this is because there is anything wrong with the poetry (a lot of it was really beautiful)—I just think the writing style and topics were too outside of my arena. The choppy sentence structure, blackouts, and bracketing may work for others but it disrupted the flow for me (although I think I would have enjoyed it more in print vs digital). She also uses a fair bit of her native language which is very beautiful, but I didn’t feel moved to keep looking up the translation. I enjoyed the critical eye she had for place, belief, and identity. The poems about betrayal and love were raw in a way that really speaks to her abilities. I think this would probably be a really enjoyable collection to a lot of people.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Rhiley Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ended up highlighting a majority of the poems. I couldn't help it, they were TOO good.
Fatimah Asghar has a way with words that will leave you breathless and in awe, while also giving you both dread and potential hope for the future of our world.
She speaks on familial loss, the genocide, ICE, displacement, love, failed relationships, Mother Earth, COVID, and even mental health. This poetry book has a bit of everything.
The prose is satisfying just to read inside your head, but I found myself going back and reading a few aloud to see how they'd taste. And that was an even better experience. Her words resonated inside me and made a place in my soul.
I will absolutely be reading whatever this author comes out with next! I look forward to it!

Thank you to NetGalley for this E-Arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about identity, family, love, heartbreak, and survival.

from [museum]: "what was the prayer to break the sky into tears? / i dig through books & pound my feet. // my land is not my land & it stays dry."

from [the women in my family]: "& silence. that must be it then: / she cam from air, from wind. // from the earth, stilling to quiet. & in / the right moment, when the sun hits // the water, when no one is around, / when i can see the mountains breaking // the sky, i can almost hear them, the women / in my family, the ones who remember their names."

from [the truth is]: "my people only count the men / the truth is half a family tree is a lie / the truth is a poem of a family is a lie // everyone tells the story different // whoever is loudest wins the memory"

[Aanchel Shah · Rating 3 out of 5]

“my dream: to be important enough to cross a border, to be so important I could go home”

“when you came, I prayed for softness. let them be someone I can love for a long time”

“the first time I met love, real love, I got on my knees & apologized for my life before. every mistake I’d made illuminated by its light.”

I love this author and ran to Libby as soon as I saw there was a new book published by them. It felt like it took me forever to get through, hence the 3 stars (actually closer to 3.5) but I still enjoyed it and I always appreciate the honest and vulnerability by this author. Maybe I need to re-read it (especially on a physical platform instead of a kindle) to fully appreciate it

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a gorgeous book of poetry.
Such a gorgeous book of heartbreaking, soul searching poetry.
Such a gorgeous book of spellbinding, mythmaking poetry.
.
Daughter of Hope (part ii) was my favorite section. Daughter of Pain (part iv) was the most painful (no surprise). Daughter of [the return] (part i) made me once again realize how you can find a poem utterly beautiful and yet have no idea what it actually meant/said. That section felt like I was a 12-teen observing a grad class.
.
Read the acknowledgements and get reminded that Asghar’s friend group is all your favorite poets. Reminds me of Traci (thestackspod) in some long ago episode saying “I wanna be in that group text!”

[Lisa Penninga · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Asghar’s collections of poetry, and this one is just as good as her others! This one carries themes of
family, loss, Pakistan laws and conflicts, love, grief, and personifies the mountains throughout the poetry. I love how she includes details that help the reader understand the poem or theme by including historical context and facts. Some of the language in the collection would be hard to use in my classroom, but I definitely found some poems I would want to include. Asghar’s use of blacking out words throughout the collection makes for a unique analysis point as well!

[Nuha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Random House and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Available July 2026.

In her newest collection of poetry, Fatimah Asghar traverses terrains of love, loss, family, longing, and draws parallels between her family story in Kashmir to the current day situation in Gaza. She beckons us to consider what is holy and what is woman, who is left out of the stories we tell ourselves to survive, and the many forms of love, including grief. I loved the experimental forms and the use of brackets to carve out intentional space and borders throughout the book.

[Annie Hegedus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fatimah Asghar has been on my to-read list for a long time, but this collection is my introduction to her work. The whole book is so beautiful and moving. She touches on themes of family, legacy, the grief of being disconnected from your heritage, and how we construct our identities. I really loved the experimental structure in some of the poems and am still thinking over ideas from them days later.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

[Ambi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a stunning book of poetry. I really enjoy Asghar’s unique style and the breadth of topics covered in this collection. Some of the standout poems for me were [still life, interrupted by border], [what existed before?], and [of course]. I look forward to picking up more of her poetry!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

[Andrea (Hammock and Read) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is raw with betrayal, love, grief, trauma, place, identity, and so much more. There are about family, death, the genocides, ICE, displacement, relationships, the pandemic, and so much more. Borders is a big one and enjoyed the poems about the connections between Gaza and Kashmir. The museum poem was a favorite.

[Natalie Park · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Nicole Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of Fatimah Asghar's beautiful collection of Poetry "Daughter of the Mountains.' It is greatly appreciated.

I can definitively say that "Daughter of the Mountains" by Fatimah Asghar is the best book I have read so far this year. Asghar's poetry is absolutely beautiful, full of emotion. They write with heartache and longing, as though yearning for an ideal that hovers just out of reach. In their work they explore place: the place we come from, the place we are, places we have been and places we return to. They redefine what home is, and what family means. Asghar explores the facets of the self: who we are, and how we learn to be this idea of "I," and how we each belong to a whole.

Many of Asghar's poems brought me to tears. They write of a people who have experienced oppression and loss: loss of loved ones, loss of place, loss of home, loss of identity. And yet, they also write of hope. They are able to dream of change, and it is this which makes this book so beautiful. It is heartrending in some places but so uplifting in others. "Daughter of the Mountains" is Fatimah Asghar's third volume of poetry. I cannot recommend this book enough, and I intend to read their other books as well.

[sai · Rating 4 out of 5]

this collection is a prayer of sorts

[Maria Parubi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was deeply impressed by Fatimah’s poetry. The topics were bittersweet, yet beautifully discussed. There was many experimental prose in the book that were lovely and added to the intended impact of the poems. I can feel the authors personality is embedded in every blood, sweat, and fear of these poems. I enjoyed reading many aloud as if I was an open mic. Overall, the common theme that encompasses many of Fatimah’s poem topics is grief. There comes a point in a woman life where we must feel the grief that is our blood and begin to heal it. As I am about to turn 30, I have been very focused on the last year in processing my grief and how important feeling it is for healing. This book sounded like it helped the author do the same. I will be looking out for any ART Fatimah puts out there because she is a very talented person.

Favorite Quotes:

- the criminalization of spirituality outside mainstream orthodoxy erases indigeneity, warps cultural memory & divorces us from land & belonging.
- but my life began with death. on either side, grief greeted.
- [the women in my family] their names have been lost, only the winds & only the mountains keep them.
- my people only count the men, the truth is half a family tree is a lie the truth is a poem of a family is a lie
- alhamdulillah, to know land so well, you can play with it.
- the forest asked to be soothed but no one spoke its language.
- I cussed out the fire for its roar. demanded it be watered.
- in your throat, running, the child in you, fire-born & wild. voice smoked, dipped in mezcal, like it was made to burn.

Favorite Poems:

- [the women in my family]
- [somewhere, somewhere, someone]
- [the ocean's tryna fuck]
- [smell is the last memory to go]
- [i can't fight]
- [There we are]
- [opposite of midas]
- [pagamento]

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.