I really enjoyed this collection of poetry by Raena Shirali. Shirali focused on the ongoing practice of witch hunting in India and reflected beautifully and at length on the ways in which identity and background guide our lives. Specifically, Shirali considered how immigrants reconcile their backgrounds with their present nationality and reflects on how these identities relate to gender-based violence. The treatment of women in both India and America were explored, as well as the ways in which a woman of Indian descent is treated in America. I enjoyed this collection a lot and would highly recommend it.

** Thanks so much to NetGalley, Raena Shirali, and Black Lawrence Press for this ARC! Summonings is available as of October 28th, 2022! **

This was a special one. With the myriad tools of documentary poetics, @raenainthemorning explores multifaceted Indian misogyny, with testimony from village women alongside her own perspective as a diasporic poet. The goddess Kali is the collection’s patron saint, appearing either explicitly or implicitly in most poems with her power to avenge evil. The language is alternatively beautiful and appropriately horrible (in its implications). It’s a master class in writing as solidarity.

This book had a compelling description and did some really clever things with space and voice, but I did not feel as drawn to it as I wanted to be. I think it is because I needed something more--a kind of thread, which was partly there with the quotes from the accused between sections, but I found those quotes more compelling than the accompanying poetry at times.

PS: I am having difficulty signing in to GoodReads due to the Facebook connectivity error, but I will put this review onto GoodReads as soon as I can log in again.