Survival Takes a Wild Imagination: Poems

Pointent Lovely feeling poems

Survival Takes A Wild Imagination is a very personal collection of poetry that peels back layers of inquiry that the author poses in her exploration to unlock some of her family history and free herself of its trauma.In this follow-up to her debut, the author begins to build a framework around questions pertaining to family and identity. Who am I? Who is my father? My mother? What does it mean to be Bangladeshi? What is freedom?I loved how the first portion of the collection was so incredibly strong and moving. In "On Dying," she writes about her relationship to her father. In "Memories Rewritten", she wonders why her relationship couldn't be softer, lighter...freer. "...Is it so wrong that I just wanted a sweet word from you." And, in "On Grief," were taking back into the year 2020 and covid. Each of the poem respectively touching and relatable. My favorite poems in the collection are "My Body is an Archive," "As Sticky As Marmalade," and the title poem, "Survival Takes A Wild Imagination.While the beginning started off strong, the energy that soared throughout those poems was nearly lost by mid collection. There were great moments all throughout but it lost a little bit of luster with so many themes on display.3.5/5 ⭐️'s

Heart opening survival poetics for these heartbreaking times.Fariha is a poet I deeply admire. Her gift for naming feels that are often elusive is admirable.This is a collection to spend careful time with if we are aspiring poets or writers of trauma informed stories.

Okay i bought this without knowing anything about her work, I saw she was doing a reading with other writers I like in LA and was interested in reading this book and I’m so glad I did. I’d buy it again and again

As with any poetry collection, there were some poems that resonated more with me than others. Róisín's voice is clear and direct, with the sort of urgency I associate with slam poetry. A few of the pieces were lyrical, but most of them got right to the point without relying on metaphor or simile. Reading this was like having the poet sitting across the desk from me and talking about her feelings and experiences regarding topics such parental neglect, self-doubt, desire, and the relationship between colonization and climate change.Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to access this collection as an ARC.