Unwashed

by Daniel Maluka

Unwashed is a deeply personal collection of poetry, centering on themes of growing up, loss of innocence, love, the immigrant experience, and alienation. The title of the collection is a reference to the urgency of the work. These are not romantic or quiet poems; they are loud and in-your-face. They speak directly to the collective anxieties of urban life and reflect the author’s experience as an immigrant in Canada and a family man in the diverse setting of Toronto. What we are given here is a tapestry of intense, image-rich poetry.

64 pages, Paperback

Published July 9, 2024

Reviews

[Cypher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find the idea of rating poetry quite strange & disrespectful because I think it is the most genuine form of written expression & I feel weird about looking into someone’s heart & then rating it…

Unwashed by Daniel Maluka is a beautiful collection of poems that each illustrate his personal experiences with so much vulnerability & honesty.

What I really admire is how specific his writing is. I do not feel as though he writes in a way that withholds details or generalizes circumstances in an attempt to allow for a general audience to connect with his work on a deeper level. Each of these is written in the way he experienced them within his context.

Very touching & very inspiring.

[Jade Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unwashed is unafraid to take daring leaps between tones, modes, and moods. There are poems of family, community, neighbourhood kids in contemporary or recent Toronto. There are poems that one sees, as if through a mist; they are unmoored in time and space, almost allegorical, full of wanderers and trees and nebulous conflicts. Daniel Maluka switches deftly between reticence and sentiment, ordinary vernacular and a kind of linguistic romanticism.

If that hasn't convinced you, Kirby's review of this book in The Fiddlehead will almost surely make you want to read it: https://thefiddlehead.ca/content/kirb...