Book Reviews


A body of work that does not shy away from carefully swaying beneath a beam of the true essence of poetry; the naked, the raw, the soiled, the pureness of unfiltered emotion. “I still find sonnets in your half-smiles” sets the tone of an exquisitely soft tongue that leaves remnants of salty tears on the pages of poetry. In the spaces between the letters Hinnah Mian continuously blesses the reader with forgiveness. Between each ache, each suffering, each piercing bullet, each unforgivable act. Hinnah conveys the familiarity and the contrast between love and war, one existing after the other and the other before the one, yet simultaneously sharing the same space. A space to build a home.
This collection reads like a clear stream interrupted by scattered rocks of varying impact. The clarity is formidably calming. It allows us to appreciate the depths of loneliness, of mental illness, of displacement, of both the human’s strengths and the crevices that allow us to come apart. It does this and spares us the fog of romanticism. Sarah “Sam” Saltiel drives us into one of the rocks and conveys an ache only they could describe this way, “i wake up with breaths pacing miles back and forth along the prison of my throat — i rot away (decay?)” The concept of “decay” trickles through the collection of poetry, through the months of living (existing)/training to live. It shows us the collapsing of surroundings and the collapsing of oneself neither which cease to exist but instead return in different forms. This is a thesaurus for the way water returns.

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