'Queerjabi' Activist Hafsa Qureshi on All Things Identity

Unicorn, Issue 8

Illustrations by Anya Perelpelkina

Luckily, the joy of video interviews is that, whether you’ve got a bad back and need to lie down while you’re talking (Hafsa), or you spilled your lunch down your top and are hiding that bit just off camera so your spaghetti stain isn’t on display (guess who – hint: not Hafsa), everyone can get comfortable. We giggle about inclusivity for those with disabilities and those who are just plain clumsy like me, go off on a glorious tangent about RPG boardgames (Hafsa recommends I need to try Blades in the Dark), and then I ask Hafsa for a few final words of wisdom about coming to terms with being fabulously bi.

“Not everyone is gonna like you, and that’s OK. And I feel like this is such a hard lesson to learn, and it’s such a hard thing to accept. But the sooner that you accept it, the sooner you’re free to do whatever the heck you want."

Dances, variations and New Worlds with the RPO, Nowak and Julian Steckel

Bachtrack

It is not often you can say that the conductor’s outfit was as ornate and charming as the billed programme, but the entrance of a silver-coated Grzegorz Nowak proved that even a conductor’s first bow can be the perfect aesthetic prelude to an evening of similarly silvery, charming music.

Segueing from Nowak’s playful entrance into something just as musically beguiling, the programme opened with Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, an orchestral arrangement of a suite of dances from the composer’s opera Prince Igor. The opening was neat and graceful, light strands of melody overlapping with precision, the first dance gliding along with a delightful absence of gravity.

shoes

adulting

To be released Autumn 2021

sandals socks bare boots

i measure the days by shoes

flicking past my feet

calendar toes

turn the page and

garden home bath funeral

tongues soles flapping

thirsty for superglue

something that sticks

and does not keep 

moving and breaking

and wearing down

roulette again

outside inside

black red straight street

even pair odd socks

fingers crossed

still coming up zero