Following on from her Forward prize-winning collection, Small Hands, Mona Arshi's new book continues in its lyrical and exact exploration of the aftershocks of grief. These extraordinary poems, which see Arshi continuing with her experiments with form, relocate experiences in both past and future feeling, in both the intimacies of ordinariness and the collective experience of myth. Moving and discomfiting, these poems tune, in their acute emotional awareness of individual pain, to the dangers and unsettling violence's of the contemporary world. Nevertheless, at the centre of this book is an overarching commitment to hope, in whatever form it takes, to the earth's tiny creatures, and its 'churning, broken song'.
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(@LivUniPress, 1 June 2019, ebook, 64 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveInc, # POPSUGARReadingChallenge, a different book by an author you read in 2021)
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I loved the author's debut novel, Somebody Loves You and I read a lot of poetry so I knew I had to check out her poetry collections. I plan to read Small Hands at some point as well. I really enjoyed this collection. The poems are filled with references to nature. I don't usually enjoy nature poems but I enjoyed the structure and style of these poems. They are beautifully written. I especially liked Little Prayer, The Lilies and Mirrors.
