In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls

by Majda Gama

Winner of the Wandering Aengus Book Award, In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls is Majda Gama's first full-length poetry collection.

90 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2025

Reviews

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the rhythm of these poems, how they rise and fall with a reader's breathing, easily, beautifully. The lines break perfectly. As easily they move between the speaker's worlds, spatially, culturally, and temporally. In doing so, they reflect on how memories not only change over time, but also when carried from place to place like a suitcase with all one's essentials. One such essential is the speaker's favorite music and the memories it connects her with. Music threads through all poems and their language. The speaker in In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls sets down her roots in remembering.

[Eman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Majda Gama looks back to her 1980s childhood in oil-boom Jidda and Reagan-era Northern Virginia, to her 1990s young adulthood in a now-gone punk-rock Washington DC, and to the echoes of history in Ba’albek and the Emirati desert. On every page we witness a life lived and observed in brave detail.

[Redsteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way the imagery shifts from East to West, from sacred to profane, from traditional to modern, and back again.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joyfully devoured this poetry book. Struck all the right soul chords.