Interview with Hadiyyah Kuma

Hadiyyah Kuma is an Indo-Guyanese writer from Toronto. Her poems, essays, and fiction have been published in places like The Rumpus, Yes Poetry, The Hart House Review, Peach Mag, and GUTS magazine.

Manahil: This is Canthius’ tenth issue, and the first for which we have a guest editor, Sanna Wani. Whether you’ve been a long-time reader of Canthius or are just getting introduced us, how did you come to decide what pieces you wanted to share with the magazine?

Hadiyyah: I have been a long time reader of Canthius. It’s one of my favourite journals, both in theme and in visuals, and I’ve always wanted my work here. After getting a push to submit I decided to share what I’ve been working on lately. I haven’t written anything I really enjoyed in a while, but these poems are the only ones that have touched me. I hope they touch others as well.

Manahil: I find writing often emerges from a conversation. What conversation is happening in your work?

Hadiyyah: I am talking to ghosts. Something I enjoy is thinking about all those that have come before me, and those who will come after. I think every person I have met, in real life, in my dreams, or through a digital interface, alive or dead, have all been essential to my existence as a sentient form. They all live forever inside of me, and this work is dedicated to them.

Manahil: I need to admit that I actually cried reading your line: “I love you so much I save pictures of your dog to make up for it” in the poem “What’s inside you was perfect.” Your poems are full of this sense of longing and yearning that I adore in love poems. How do you take emotions and feelings of love and turn them into words of a love poem?

Hadiyyah: I’m not sure! Love is something I feel everyday, for many reasons. Some of the people I love the most are people who cannot physically be with me, so words are really the only avenue I have for sharing space with them and hoping my emotions will reach them.

Manahil: What is something you’re working on that you’d like to share?

Hadiyyah: Slowly, very slowly, working on a manuscript. Plans for it sort of became foiled due to Covid and I am trying to fall in love with it again. My website with all digitally published work can be found at https://hadiyyahkuma.weebly.com.

Manahil: In closing, what is a poem, story, painting, chapbook, or book you would like to recommend others read?

Hadiyyah: I think everyone should read “lately I am trying” by Sanna Wani in ex/post. This poem inspired me to write the ones in here, and also just to keep trying.