publications
a sampler of academic writing, poetry, essays & journalism
for my sisters
who entered the nile
with open eyes
In October 2024, activists from El Gezira state in Sudan reported that 130 women and girls committed suicide to escape rape by the RSF militia. The UAE-backed RSF militia notoriously uses militarized rape and gang rape as a weapon of war in Sudan’s counter-revolutionary war. In two years, the war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced 11 million people, exposed 24 million to starvation, and left 14 million children without access to education. Given the dire humanitarian crisis, precise figures of those who experienced sexual violence, and those who entered the Nile, cannot be confirmed. This poem is dedicated to the memory of the deceased and in honor of the survivors.
​
​​​
for optimal formatting view as PDF
​​
disarm humanity
dreaming of a future without blood on our hands: meditations from the third decade of the third millennium
"Part manifesto, part scholarship, part extended poetic engagement, Umniya Najaer makes a radical bid for a better future in a singularly peerless transdisciplinary work." —Nour Eldin H., Mizna assistant editor
​
Appears in: Mizna 25.2: Futurities​
​
or
​​
IF THERE IS AN UPPER LIMIT TO THE HUMAN CAPACITY TO COMPUTE MASS ATROCITY THEN THERE MUST BE A HARD LIMIT ON LETHAL TECHNOLOGIES BECAUSE THE IMPLICATION IS THAT AS VIOLENCE ESCALATES IT ALSO BECOMES INCREASINGLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
THEREFORE, TO PROTECT THE HUMAN COLLECTIVE, WE MUST
DISARM HUMANITY.
dear alice, "for the murder of [your] bastard child" of the starry eyed tribe born to children
Archive-based epistolary essay about the case of Alice Clifton, an enslaved girl trialed for murder in Philadelphia in 1787.
​
Appears in: So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth (2023)
​
Read Online -->​
​
Intimate portraits of the Sudanese diaspora in poems.
Themes include Biyout al Ashbah, the government's unofficial torture sites and building home after loss.
Akashic Press
SPINNING
zuihitsu on planetary and cosmic consciousness
Zuihitsu is a Japanese literary form dating back to 1002AD.
This Zuihitsu explores the potential for metamorphosis in human consciousness.
​
Appears in: Mizna 23.2 Black SWANA Takeover Edition
​
Read Online -->​
The case of Ayyub Abdul-Alim fits a decades-long pattern of government criminalization of African-American Muslims.
