Vulnerability by Neha Maqsood

Description

‘Vulnerability’ is Neha Maqsood’s debut chapbook which chronicles her journey as a Pakistani-Muslim woman, from her teens to early adulthood. Each poem is emotionally stirring, touching upon the happenings of the universal human condition – from one’s vacillating faith in a higher power to shakingly navigating ones brownness amongst a world seeking singularity and homogeny. An honest portrayal of the diasporic narrative, the resulting works teeter on the edge of becoming political and how could they not?

While each poem is lyrically woven, Maqsood uses her vibrant lexicon and stark imagery to shift smoothly between free verse and prose. The works move through family trauma, the power of parental love, the touch of memory, the hopefulness of prayer, and the defiance to survive.

‘Vulnerability’ takes the readers on a singular journey, as each poem exposes them to a world they know not of but perhaps have heard rumblings.

Book Information

Page count: 20 pages
Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5
Format: Saddle Stitch Binding, Chapbook Print

Shipping Information

All books are shipped and distributed by The Hellebore Press. Please allow 3-4 weeks for pre-orders to be shipped. Due to COVID-19 delays and restrictions, shipping locations may be limited and waiting periods may be extended. Your patience is appreciated. Thank you for supporting independent press.

About the Author

Neha Maqsood is a born and bred Pakistani. She enjoys reporting the honest truth about race, religion, and global feminism for numerous publications including Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Teen Vogue and Dawn. Her poetry, too, has found a home in the Kenyon Review, Ambit Magazine, Strange Horizons, and other literary journals. She currently writes out of Karachi, Pakistan.

Praise for Vulnerability

Relatable, accessible, powerful and beautiful—Vulnerability is superb and a must read.

Sara Jafari, Author of The Mismatch (Random House, US)

Neha Maqsood’s Vulnerability is a triumphant debut. With both lyrical deftness and startling clarity, the poems explore identity, desire, and belonging. In a world that has “turned a glaring white,” Maqsood offers a landscape brimming with color: brown skin, blue bottles, maroon rugs, and green noises. Vulnerability is full of sensory delights and probing observations, where the personal and political are intimately braided; the Empire alongside abelias and prophets next to biryani. These are poems slick with castor oil, poems kneeling in prayer, poems longing for home, and poems that are unafraid to look you directly in the eye as they sing their magnificent, necessary song.

Natasha Rao, Author of Latitude (Copper Canyon Press), Winner of the 2021 American Poetry Review First Book Prize

There is an undercutting and questioning in these poems that I love; there’s an understanding of diaspora writing and narratives and a willingness to engage with that tradition.

José Olivarez, Author of Citizen Illegal (Haymarket Books)

This is a collection for the senses, one that my body recognizes and welcomes home before words can form into language to respond to it. It moves its way down, like honey, to soothe the ravages left by the compounding traumas of patriarchy, colonization, displacement, xenophobia, white supremacy, capitalism, and stigma. Vulnerability is a painful but starry work, brimming with glassy specks of light to accompany its many shadows, and gives comfort to those of us who must survive the overlapping violence’s of existing in a body born against the tide.

Frances Nguyen, Editor of Women Under Siege, Women’s Media Centre.