Noon Meem Danish Brought the Black Experience to Urdu Poetry

Noon Meem Danish Brought the Black Experience to Urdu Poetry

While on his daily commute in New York City, Pakistani poet Noor Mohammad Danish, better known by his pen name Noon Meem Danish, would absentmindedly count different races on board his bus. Three white people, two Latinos, 10 Black folks, he would enumerate. But one morning he had a sudden realization.  “When it came to Black people, I would not count myself. I used to think, well I am Pakistani, I speak Urdu. And I forgot that I was Black in my…