come from

by Janan Alexandra, Ross Gay (foreword)

Genres: Poetry

115 pages, Hardcover

Published April 29, 2025

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

“return could mean to give back or come back or go back or to turn once more” - Return, the etymologies by janan alexandra

Come From by janan alexandra is a poetry collection about home and language and grief. These poems were so powerful and each one felt like a gem. I want to read works that make me feel closer to life, and this collection did just that.

I’ve been reading a lot of books about home and memory lately. My favorite from the collection, Return, the etymologies, linked these ideas to language and the importance language and memory play in our own pasts.

I keep returning to The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Sarah Booker. In Booker’s translators note, she notes she has translated “retroceder” as “to turn back” because it suggests a spatial and temporal movement.

I’m grappling with the difficulties of balancing time and our perceptions of it in literature. alexandra’s poems expertly weave this temporality and make the past feel very much part of the present.

I also particularly loved the language, the translation, and the untranslatable throughout. It made me want to learn so much more about Arabic.

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an amazing book! Oof all the things I want to say. janan writes in a way that is a masterclass in the art of noticing the details that are in the details. She is a poet who makes the mundane extraordinary, which then makes you go back and start examining the world around you in a new way. This collection is a reminder to pay attention. And I loved the way dual language was incorporated.

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories and music in these poems are absolutely infectious. Grab a friend and share these poems with them; janan's words inspire the best kind of deliberate, human connection that is hard to come by in this digital age.

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how tender the poems in "come from" are, their immediacy, how they insist on connection—human and otherwise, how they seek to root themselves in the earth they stand on while the speaker's branches reach across countries and continents. The poems extend an encouraging and inviting hand in a time of genocide.

[CKG · Rating 4 out of 5]

overflowing with life. plus: luscious, enthusiastic, vivid acknowledgements.

[Hafsa | حفصہ · Rating 5 out of 5]

come from beckons the reader to go where there is love and keep “caring for what lives, living for what cares & moves in us, oh each brief company.”

Full Review in The Adroit Journal: https://theadroitjournal.org/2025/05/...