Description
Book SynopsisThe islands of an archipelago are isolated above sea level but attached underwater; connected yet separate. archipelago, the debut poetry collection from Laila Malik, traces fragments of family, becoming and unbecoming against the shifting shorelines of loss, multigenerational migration, and (un)belonging.
Malik's lyrical poems intertwine histories of exile and ecological devastation. Beginning with a coming of age in the 80s and 90s between Canada, the Arabian Gulf, East Africa and Kashmir, they subvert conventions of lineage, instead drawing on the truths of inter-ethnic histories amidst sparse landscapes of deserts, oceans, and mountains. They question why the only certainties of "home" are urgency and impossibility.
At its core, archipelago is a letter to the daughters who come before and after, a quiet disclosure of barbed ancestral legacies that only come into focus through poetry.
Trade ReviewIn archipelago “home is constantly in a state of flux. It exists in a difficult relationship to physical place; the disconnect between generations makes it equally difficult for home to exist in metaphorical spaces.” —Quill and Quire
“In her evocative debut collection, Laila Malik draws on memory, not only personal recollection but ancestral and cultural heritage.” —Toronto Star
“In her debut collection, archipelago, Laila Malik considers un-belonging as a way of being.” —Winnipeg Free Press
“Malik’s poems carry the weight of unearthed treasures, ancient fragments of wisdom that researchers might devote their careers to piecing together. It is the deft juxtaposition between the ‘you’ and the ‘I’ and Malik’s culturally specific language that makes some poems, like ‘crooked elbows,’ so enthralling.” —Zoe Binder, ZYZZYVA
Table of Contentsprologue: all your grandmothers have stopped cooking1 pre-cambrianacacia honeythe organic properties of sandjust kids going homecutlerycharred graingrain II2 petroleum byproductsthe first gulf warwe ignored the 5000 year old temple ruins kafala vanishing axesmajnun3 half-life of exileriteswrong bonesfajr is the loneliest numberzero bridgehidden lines letter to my stardust sisterhow to season a turkey4: kufic the widow’s inventory still the heartbaby sharkurducrooked elbowsepilogue: irreconciliationnotesacknowledgements
