Lantern: Poems

by Sanna Wani

Meditations on the beauty of an ordinary life


Meditating on the beauty of an ordinary life, Sanna Wani’s second poetry collection, Lantern, explores how we fall in love and make a home. What does it mean to belong to a city, or to truly enter adulthood? Imbued with a quiet queerness, this book is a guide for living in the aftermath of familial rifts, crises of faith, political struggle, and intergenerational grief—all while remaining devoted to an idea of goodness.


A love letter to Toronto, Lantern is grounded in subway stations and city parks yet textured like watercolour and linen. Wani writes with reverence for animals, trees and flowers, but does not avoid everyday difficulties—the burnout of a 9-5; her fraught homeland of Kashmir; or the reality of Islamophobia in Canada. Wani also addresses the craft and the limits of language. Lantern is kaleidoscopic in its memory, mothering and morality refract through tarot, Sufism, and psychoanalysis.


A balm and an ode, this collection places Wani in the lineage of Mary Oliver while carving her own path as both theo- and ecopoet. Taking stock of one precious life, Lantern invites us to consider our responsibilities—to ourselves and each other—and to choose who we might become.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

Published September 22, 2026

About the author

SANNA WANI loves daisies. Her work has appeared in Brick, Poem-A-Day (poets.org), and Best Canadian Poetry 2020. She lives in Mississauga, Ontario, and Srinagar, Kashmir. This is her first collection of poetry.

Reviews

[briisreads]

"I look at the world like it has something to say."

Delightful.

[DeeSoul]

Abundance is a sign of good health. Like this tree, I am not interested in poetry that does not help me live.
- pg 10, "A Happy Poet"

Wani's second collection, as the title suggests, is so full of light. Split into five sections — CRAFT, LOVE, ETHOS, FAITH, & GRIEF — the poems read like meditations, musing on the forces that propel us through our daily lives. There is a Mary Oliver-esque quality to the work, which grounds itself in moments we can all resonate with: the peculiarities of our loves, the ways we grow infatuated with our cities. ∴ Poetry is a sense of grace, Wani writes in "Proof." Even in the midst of pain or grief, poetry reminds us of beauty. This collection shines like a lamp post guiding us back to our center.