The Opposite of an Exodus

Amara Amaryah's debut is a 'backward walk' towards oneself and one's history, in which the poet plays with plurality of voice, story and silence. A mother and daughter sit down together as children, second-generation kids 'choose language the way a carpenter chooses tools'. Archival in their various forms, these poems hold dialogue with bell hooks, Jamaica Kincaid and Ntozake Shange. They collage dreams, receipts, text messages, psalm. They live 'somewhere between where I am and who I was', activating this liminal space as a moment of perpetual rebirth.