Naguib has a voice that feels fully formed from the first page. Her movement across countries and cultures is the gravitational field of this collection, which takes the story of her becoming—many of the poems approach coming of age from different angles; "Bildungsroman," "Prologue to Womanhood," "Rumours of an Origin"—and places it within the geopolitical world she grew up in.

Poem after poem, Naguib confronts migrant abuse in the Arabian Gulf, the prickly afterlives of America's War on Terror, the violence and erasure at the center of it all. But even while moving through these larger histories, her poetry never loses sight of the people closest to her. Her father, mother, and sister move in and out of the book, rendered with an attention that approaches devotion.

The collection is at its most alive in the first two sections, which examine the speaker's awakening to bodily pleasure within a strict religious environment alongside her refusal to look away from violence. The later sections are less concentrated, though they push the book's formal range somewhere new.

I think this collection will resonate especially with readers of Leila Chatti and Aria Aber, and with anyone drawn to metaphors that work like water on stone.

Thank you for the advanced reader's copy.