‘Words can Heal Us to Cross Over’
Semeen Ali
ATTRAVERSIAMO: CROSSING OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE OF SURVIVAL by Saniya Puri BookLeaf Publishing, 2022, 30 pp., 180.00
February 2023, volume 47, No 2

The cover of this slim volume of poems is of a flower blossoming and the uneven lines drawn on every petal sets the tone for the ideas that are enclosed within its spaces. On first glance, one is not prepared for what follows inside the book. The stereotypical set of ideas pertaining to flowers and colour schemes that one has been conditioned to, and the way one casually looks at the surface, does not prepare us for the powerful assemblage of poems that will shake you to your core. The first few pages slowly set the tone and unfold the depths that Puri has sought to explore and put forward.

All the spaces between the words

I did not speak, could not speak

Are spaces rotten with grief.

Continue reading this review