A Map of Rain Days (276)

by Jennifer Hosein

The poems in A Map of Rain Days address the beauty and shadows of life while navigating the realities of racism, addiction, suicide, rape, abuse and death. Ecstasy and loneliness, romance and terror are juxtaposed. Love is brutal and intoxicating, adolescence is "the carcass of youth." Yet still we live and love and come out kicking. The poems in A Map of Rain Days span a lifetime, moving backwards from the loss of a mother to when the speaker was a "tiny girl in a third-floor walk-up." The title of the book comes from the poem of the same name, in which the speaker walks "down the corridors/in [her] mother's bruised shoes;" when she describes her mother's toes as "crooked and curled/in a misguided, arthritic map/of rain days," the speaker is describing the life she has lived. Winter is a metaphor for isolation, darkness and death. The speaker lives in a country that "is an ice storm." Aunty and Uncle are "hidden in rock/and snow." Death and winter are inextricably "Mother floats around the car/with the snow" and "snow...caresses a man who struggles/with his foolproof design/for suicide." Even love and longing are locked in "bent over you/I become the stillness of night, the snow itself." Love and loss feature in the love for a mother and a daughter, longing for a lover, and the loss of a best friend. Love is overpowering. When the speaker has to move her mother out of her apartment on the eve of her daughter's birthday, "Love fills [her] up like a ballooon,/so full and stretched and thin [is she]." When her daughter moves across the continent,  the speaker holds "tight to the pillow/that [she] laid [her] head upon/as if it were love/itself." When a friend dies unexpectedly, the speaker cannot let him go, and there is "a can of Diet Coke/that [she is] keeping for the next time/[he stops] by." Love is both brutal and intoxicating. The speaker longs for a man who, "when [she pauses] to wipe/the sand from [her] eyes...[is] gone."  Romance "has been chewed/out of [her]/kisses carved away," yet still she listens to a lover's "breath fall/and the cacophony of sheets/against [their] skin." There is violence in a controlling husband who would "cut [her] breasts off/so no man/can look at them" and a lover who "turned [her] to ash that stuck/to the soles of [his] feet/during [his] tirades/and blackouts." In all of this, the speaker becomes "the thin voice itself/and little more." When she tries to escape, she turns around "to find his hands he holds all of me."  Living in exile is another motif in the book. Born and raised in Montreal, the speaker, whose background is South Asian, experiences "the swill and gore" of adolescence in a hostile Toronto suburb. Struggling to live in a world where "sticks and stones broke all of [her]," she wonders how her father learned "to put his feet down/on unfamiliar soil." But it is possible to look racism in the eye; responding to the racist taunts of a man on a bus, the speaker tells him "my mother's black coat/against the winter-white paysage is always/and only home/and he/should be so lucky." When the speaker has finally begun to feel that "in [her] tiny radius/of the world/[she is] almost white," Donald Trump wins the American election, and racism rears its ugly head full on.   However, despite all the hardships life throws at the speaker, life goes on, and she lives and loves and comes out stronger.

Genres: Poetry

110 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2020

About the author

Jennifer Hosein is a Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-born writer, visual artist and educator of Trinidadian and South Asian ancestry residing in Tkaronto/Toronto. Her debut collection of poetry, A Map of Rain Days, published by Guernica Editions in 2020, was longlisted for the League of Canadian Poets 2021 Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Her poems, short fiction, creative non-fiction, and a play have been published in The Fiddlehead, The Quarantine Review, Event, Rubicon, Makara, as well as translated into Hungarian for the anthology Crystal Garden/Kristálykert. Her artwork has appeared on book covers, in magazines, and in solo and group exhibitions in Toronto; it is also featured on the cover of A Map of Rain Days. www.jenniferhosein.ca

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Map Of Rain Days by Jennifer Hosein is filled with the harshness of life. The truth behind the facade. The pure realities of love and loss, and transformation.

These poems by Ms. Hosein evoked such emotion. I became fully immersed in her writing. Her poetry resonated with me in such a way that I could not look away. I had to continue reading. The intensity was palpable. I believe this book to be a work of art. Wonderfully done.

Thanks to NetGalley, Guernica Editions, and Jennifer Hosein for an ARC in return for an honest review.

[Ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 heartbroken stars

I had never read Hosein before this book, so I wasn't really sure what I was in for. And well, I still am not sure what it was that this book has done to me, but my heart feels brutalized in the most welcome of ways.

My brother
has no time
for the heart-breakingness
of the old

and I have no place left
to put the sorrow
she hands to me.

The poems in this collection are each a culmination of the mundane pain we all feel everyday, and yet Hosein writes it such that you are introduced to it altogether anew. In Waiting we are met with a mother awaiting her son, and the daughter forgotten save for the company she provides, and I find it so beautifully heart-wrenching. Wedding Day gave me the goosebumps at how savage it can be to ache.

There are some pieces that are more abstract than the others, and I love them too because of my love for abstract poetry, and there are some that are just so concrete and cutting that you could bleed on them.

Hosein here has written a brilliant collection that pulls at your heart and chews at its strings, only to leave you winded once you're through with the book.

[Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, I had never read Hosein before but definitely will be again. This collection do poems was about the basic things in life that can be filled with heartbreak but was presented in such a beautifully abstract way that slightly forces the reader to really digest what they are reading. And I truly enjoyed it. There were times while reading that I would have to pause and breathe simply because the poem spoke to me so much it felt like somebody was screaming it at me. This is a gorgeous collection of poetry and I am excited to read more by this author in the future.

[Anna Tsagkari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like to thank Netgalley and Dylan Curran, the publisher of A Map of Rainy Days by Jennifer Hosein for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy, in exchange for an honest review.

This is how I felt when I read Hosein's poems:

I devoured the book in one sitting. I woke up, and I reread it, revisiting some poems that spoke to my soul. It's an emotional, intimate collection of poems covering several diverse topics, including the death of a loved one, being in love, suicide, racism, loneliness. The book is divided into chapters. It feels like the poet is holding our hand, inviting us on a journey with her, allowing us to discover different chapters of her life.

There were so many poems I loved in this collection. To name a few: " I love You", "Widow",
" Oubliette", "Vessel", " Poison-Drunk", "Fists", " Cabin", "Subterfuge", "Used to", "History", "Weekend", "Ebb", "Mouth", "Crow's Feet", "Romance", "Song", Leap Day", "Fall", "Ink", "Unfamiliar", "Mon Pays", "Milk", "Pacific", "Fog", "Dead Boys", "Conductor".

The poems that I identified a lot with were the ones talking about problematic romantic relationships, relationships where emotions of sadness were the norm, relationships where darkness prevailed, relationships that leave a deep mark on the soul, a mark that you struggle to get rid of ( " Mouth": I reach/into the back/of my mouth/ to pull pieces of you/out).
This kind of love tricks you, inviting you in with the promise of passion, emptying your soul, poisoning you ( Fall: " Once you were air/then you were cinders/that I spat up now/and then),
and scattering your pieces in the ocean ( Pacific: " When you swim with her ashes in the Pacific/ her kiss tucks you back/ into the swirling ruckus/she left behind").
You struggle to break free but the scars are there ( Crow's feet: "Inked on my face/are shadows that you left/behind, imprints/ of your lovers' hands ) and you have to constantly fight to break free, to breathe again ( Fall: " ...to pull pieces of you/ out. But they stick/ so I choke and fumble), to not end up living for him, disappearing into nothingness ( History: " Look at me/on his bed/History/ will not untie me/His story, always his/story. Someone's his/ story).

The poem "Oubliette" sounds like a dark fairy tale, the image of a trapped man, waiting for the reward of his patience: his love to be reciprocated. This never happens. When the woman decides she is ready to give back, he has disappeared.

p. 104
" She put him in the oubliette and locked it.... Finally she came, to collect his love, but he had turned to dust"

The poem "Poison-Drunk" describes how deeply the scars of betrayal hurt and how difficult it is to trust other people and yourself

p. 100
" You say,
Believe me it won't hurt
I never believe you.
I sit up awaiting
betrayal"

In the poem "Unfamiliar" the writer wonders how her parents managed to grow roots in a foreign place. She wishes she had asked them to share with her this wisdom, this inner strength she needs to feel connected to this land.

p. 45 " I wish I has asked.
Tell me about my skin...
How did my father learn to put his feet down
on unfamiliar soil?
My mother's steps
had a ring to them of certainty. She knew.
I did not"


I would recommend this hauntingly beautiful collection of poems by Jennifer Hosein to everyone.

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this collection of poems, Hosein tackles numerous big topics, including abusive relationships, the painful loss of her mother, the emotional strain of trauma, and the racism she faces as a POC living in Canada. All are approached with honesty and verve, employing simple yet effective imagery to hit home her themes:

“I took you in / and you took me over / the way a spark / consumes a forest”

“You have no vision / of the carcass of youth / that lies ahead / the swill and gore of it”

The strongest section for me is the one that opens the collection, exploring the gradual, heartrending loss of her mother. Hosein captures the uniquely painful time in life in which your parents come to rely on you for care, just as your children reach independence, reflecting the mother-daughter relationship from both perspectives. The section that explores her experiences as the daughter of immigrant parents is also very strong, exploring the internalised shame she felt as a child, the flames of which were fanned by the 2016 election result.

“I was always dark / concrete / a blood-spot / on a crisp / white shirt / They tried to / scrub me / wipe me / cut me out / Every day / it took an army / of pains / to prepare a face / to confront the world”

These sections open the book so strongly that the rest fails to reach the same heights by comparison. Some smaller pieces fail to add much to the overall impact, meaning the collection ultimately feels overlong. A more streamlined selection would have allowed the real gems to shine, but I’m still glad to have discovered Hosein’s work.

Thank you to the publisher for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Tamara Zayachkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jennifer Hosein’s poems are full of beautiful imagery that feel very raw and all-encompassing. My favourite are three poems from the Romance section, despite Jennifer claiming not to be a romantic.
The three poems focus on the external of a lover, which makes them bracingly visceral. “Ebb” is my favourite poem. It is very romantic, despite the author claiming to be otherwise. I love the allusions to moonlight and the implication of departure and how leaving a lover can have a bittersweet edge to it. “ There are moons in your eyes” is a very sweet line.

Also, “Mouth” is very nice and intimate, examining how you have to wrest pieces of an ex-lover from you against your will.

In both poems I love the subtext of how eyes and mouths are gateways to the soul. Because they can feel like that.

Voice: “ I attempt to trace your tangled voice in the black air …” Jennifer Hosen’s poems are very visceral and the emphasis on the external attributes of the lover in question makes this very personal and very relatable for anyone who has been in love. The emphasis of detecting your lover through blackness and mystery by voice alone gives the poem a haunting edge. Harshness and vulnerability combined makes this poem, and collectively all three of these poems, very balanced and relatable. There is a lot of harsh truths in her poems about love.

[Padmaja Reddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘A Map of Rain Days’ by Jennifer Hosein narrates vivid experiences encompassing love, exile, romance and history. Her tone is powerful and bruised.

Most of the poems in the First section are crafted ‘Mother’ as the central point. Those include ‘Heart’, ‘January’, ‘Breath’.

Beautiful expressions like ‘Beloved Mother is a clipped-winged bird that floats around in lace’, ‘Walking down in corridors in mother’s bruised shoes’ charm the readers.

Mother and daughter gift words to each other every day in ‘Waiting’. And the daughter has no place left to put the sorrow handed by the mother.

Violence in love is painted so brilliant - ‘when your words knock me to the floor, I pick up the pieces and walk away.’

Love for mother and daughter as well as loss of a dear friend, American election, racism become central themes of certain poems.

Jennifer’s style is affluent and sensuous.

[eindra · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a seriously beautiful collection of fragile poems. the imagery in here is fantastic and hosein's style and voice are so unique. these poems are like bruises in the way that it doesn't hurt if you run over it lightly but the second you press in just a bit deeper the wound begins to sting. there is a real fragility and delicacy in the way hosein paints love and history and relationships and family. it feels so brutal but soft at the same time. i loveddd hosein's imagery and metaphors it was so realistic yet intricately whimsical.

[Duane MacNeill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jennifer Hosein writes from the heart. Her poems tell a vibrant and relevant perspective story of a woman of colour’s personal journey through 5 decades of love and loss, pain and joy. Her words create a vivid picture of life and landscapes that will be familiar to many. The artwork she has included brings her writing to life. This is a gem.

[Erin Clements · Rating 3 out of 5]

eARC courtesy of Netgalley.

I wanted to absolutely adore this collection, but unfortunately the poems ended up feeling more hit-and-miss than I expected. There were multiple pieces I still liked, but the majority were just kinda "meh."

[Hollay Ghadery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such lilting, lyrical and accessible poems. A perfect collection to keep in your purse and pull out as needed.

[Gope Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is actually great.

[Heather Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Map of Rain Days is one of the most sensual and beautiful poetry books that I have read in a long time. The poems in this collection are at once both disturbing and soothing. This is a collection for anyone who has ever lost someone. The poems in A Map of Rain Days will sit with you. They will hold your hand and they will break your heart.