I’d been looking forward to this collection for months. These poems are searing, with Abu Toha’s grief and rage bleeding through with every line. For those of us who have witnessed the past 15 months in hi-def, these poems will make the aches that have been living in your soul pulse in remembrance:

“no need for radio / we are the news”

“You are alive / for a moment / when living people / run after you”

I could quote so many of these poems that resonated with me but two especially that I want to hang from my walls are “After Allen Ginsberg” and “My Library”

Abu Toha treads the line of harrowing, heartbreak and hopefulness so well and as he says, he wishes he didn’t have to. Yet if anyone does, I’m glad it is he, since he has been able to find the words for the second collection in a row.