There have been a couple of recent exceptions, so a while later I requested a copy and I’m so glad I did; it’s the best thing I’ve read this year. In other reviews I have seen curiosity about essays and nonfiction and I would echo these sentiments, hoping to see further exploration of writing styles. She seeks to re-educate throughout, such as in ‘what 9/11 did to us’ – 2,976 Americans died that day.

It explores shame, ancestral trauma and violence—weaving in Róisin’s personal experience of abuse at the hands of her mother, while also being trapped in a body, time and era where she’s being forced to confront the many things that have haunted her. Simultaneously, this compilation unpacks the contentious relationship that exists between RoísiÔn and her mother, her platonic and romantic heartbreaks, and the cognitive dissonance felt as a result of being so divided among her broad spectrum of identities. The struggles she faced as a queer, young Muslim woman puts into focus the parallel strife of the everyday brown woman.I’m 50+ books into my Goodreads Challenge this year and this is easily the best thing I’ve read so far. Fariha Róisín uses her poems as a way to speak about what it’s like to navigate the terrain of colonialism in a brown, queer, Muslim body. Róisín is an Australian-Canadian living in Brooklyn, and a lot of her writing explores the theme of identity and intersectionality – she’s a queer Muslim, she’s a woman of colour, and she’s a survivor. Her hope is that “the more honest we are with our bodies and our own limitations, the more accepting we become of difference.

Being In Your Body (Abrams, 2019) is a journal for women, femmes and non-binary folks to work through body dysmorphia. That being said i found some of these poems to be beautiful and captivating and others were perhaps a bit weaker and left me confused. This year I’ve been on something of a mission to educate myself about other experiences and stories, and this poetry collection has certainly left a mark. It's about the abuse enacted by mothers, while considering the history of that abuse; it's about the psychological torture of being talked about but never heard, of not knowing the sound of our own voices because of how long it's been drowned out by others, it's about a deep empathy and respect for abusive parents who have survived so much that you'll never have to go through.To be completely honest, so far I find myself finding bits and pieces of her works that are really nice; complimentary in a way.

i have read and enjoyed a few poetry collections over the last few years but this one certainly does stand out in the crowd. The author speaks about her own experiences, and I feel I have no right to say if they deserve a three, four, five, star rating. mothers’ is particularly powerful ( when i look in the mirror, sometimes i see them, looking back, eyes droopy, weary from the weight of womanhood, tired of the throes of masculinity, patriarchy, white supremacy, they mourn it too. this felt like a very twitter thread-y take on these topics with an occasional sprinkle of SAT words. are very important and should still be addressed… i just don’t think this is how i’d like to read about them personally.

How to Cure a Ghost is a reminder that our bodies contain histories, and that every time an incident of flippant, casual racism/misogyny/queerphobia happens, it's an accumulation of war and abuse, rape and violence, that have been normalized intergenerationally. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall). n’s poetry book is a collection of her thoughts as a young, queer, Muslim femme navigating the difficulties of her intersectionality. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit. There is no doubt however that the poems in How to Cure a Ghost are very personal to the author and came from the heart.

Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit. If you’re like me, and often quick to dismiss poetry as a result of terrible required reading at school, please be reassured that there is some fucking awesome modern poetry available. The thing is that those poems weren’t that great and the solipsistic emotional ones were her mediocre best. There were some stanzas and lines that were just not very good and read more like a tumblr rant than a thought-out piece of work. Simultaneously, this compilation unpacks the contentious relationship that exists between Róisín and her mother, her platonic and romantic heartbreaks, and the cognitive dissonance felt as a result of being so divided among her broad spectrum of identities.I’m acutely familiar with that, more times than I’d care to admit, so I couldn’t help but really relate to and enjoy some bits.