{"product_id":"small-hands-9781781381816","title":"Small Hands","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2015 Forward Prize for Best First Collection\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMona Arshi’s debut collection, 'Small Hands', introduces a brilliant and compelling new voice. At the centre of the book is the slow detonation of grief after her brother’s death but her work focuses on the whole variety of human experience: pleasure, hardship, tradition, energised by language which is in turn both tender and risky. Often startling as well as lyrical, Arshi’s poems resist fixity; there is a gentle poignancy at work here which haunt many of the poems. This is humane poetry. Arshi’s is a daring, moving and original voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReviews 'It is a testament to Mona Arshi's talent that, after a decade of not reading any poetry at all, her work had me clambering for old anthologies. Of course, little of what I read afterwards was as elegant, moving, haunting or true. Nothing less than Britain's most promising writer.'\u003cbr\u003e Sathnam Sanghera, \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Deliciously varied in form and approach, tone and voice, Mona Arshi’s poems display a tantalising ‘instability’ – each one prismatic and glittering. She opens a clear, suggestive window onto many aspects of life and inner life, on her cultural background, for instance, and on the tragic loss of a brother. So often one thinks, pulled up in amazement, ‘Where did that come from?’ that I’m tempted to the use the word ‘genius’.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMoniza Alvi\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'There is an extraordinary keenness, sharpness, poignancy and precision in Mona Arshi's poems. They deal with loss, pleasure and the sheer particularities of life with striking grace, constituting something like ‘an erotics of the spirit’, tenderly and imaginatively taking apart and reassembling language, registering everything necessary. Time and again she hits the perfect note. It is rare to find a first book as beautiful as this.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eGeorge Szirtes\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Mona Arshi’s debut collection certainly lives up to that claim. Her work draws on a rainbow of influences, including her Punjabi Sikh heritage. Fuelled by grief at her brother’s death, but encompassing a range of human experiences, her poems have the vividly uncanny quality of dreams, as the surface of ordinary things shifts to reveal something quite disturbingly different. Her use of imagery is startlingly original: pomegranate seeds are ‘unborns ticking\/in blisters of heat’.'\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Lady\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Mona Arshi proves she has the tools to move and startle her audience with precisely-crafted work.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e Dundee University Review of the Arts\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e'Small Hands\u003c\/i\u003e is a beautiful, minimally-designed and tiny edition – even the font is noticeably smaller than the industry norm – and Liverpool University Press have done an excellent job making the physical object match the work inside it. The collection is full of curious, shifty poems that seem intent on approaching their subjects sidelong, or from multiple angles at once. If this approach sometimes makes it difficult to get an accurate read on the poem’s message, it does make for work that seems to offer up something different with every reading.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDave Poems\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'This is an intriguing, powerful collection.'\u003cbr\u003eCath Nichols, \u003ci\u003ePoetry Wales\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003ci\u003eSmall Hands\u003c\/i\u003e seems to offer an early ripening of what promises to be a vintage trip into ‘foreignation.’\u003cbr\u003eKen Evans, \u003ci\u003eThe Manchester Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003ci\u003eSmall Hands\u003c\/i\u003e is a brimming miscellany of poems. [A] prominent and enjoyable aspect of Arshi’s work is its sensuality and awareness of the body; this is a collection full of hands, feet, mouths, lips, eyes, wrists, hair and, ubiquitously, skin. [...] Arshi combines a liking for obliqueness, sometimes even coolness, with a desire to push what language can do and a willingness to experiment with form.'Martyn Crusifix\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Lion\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEntomological Specimens\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePracticing Your Skills\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eInsomniac\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhat Every Girl Should Know Before Marriage\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTaster\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBad Day in the Office\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eYou Are Not\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMy Mother’s Hair\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Gold Bangles\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e‘Jesus Saves’\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTicking\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOn Ellington Road\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCousin Migrant\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Daughters\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDifferent Principles of Enclosure\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDay Ghost\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThis Morning\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Bird\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAlmost September\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePhone Call on a Train Journey\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSmall Hands\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIn the Coroner’s Office\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eApril\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e18th of November\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNotes Towards an Elegy\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Urn\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Rain That Began Elsewhere\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGloves\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMy Father Wants to be a Rooftop Railway Surfer\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGhazal\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGhazal\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOde to a Pomegranate\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBulbul\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eParvarti waits for the return of Shiva, after the slaying of Ganesh\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLost Poem\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLarge and Imprecise Baby\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWireman\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBarbule\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Found Thing\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWoman at Window\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMr Beeharry’s Marriage Bureau\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMrs M Unravels\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBallad of the Small-Boned Daughter\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHummingbird\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Liverpool University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49411847323991,"sku":"9781781381816","price":13.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781381816.jpg?v=1730514867","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/small-hands-9781781381816","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}