Amblyopia

by Ananda Lima

Struggles with sight inspire an expansion of vision in Amblyopia, Ananda Lima’s micro-chapbook of poems that span senses, borders, and generations. “[M]y condition a pastel tinged party trick / watch me get lost in my vapor watch me / get by until it thickens into clouds / condenses down into my son’s eyes,” the speaker says, describing the titular visual disorder as it is passed through the family. As formally astounding as it is emotionally tender, Amblyopia explores themes of inheritance and motherhood, language and migration, translation and assimilation, and more, inviting readers to consider more deeply, When, why, and how did you learn to “see”?

Includes the poems “Amblyopia,” “Amblyopia,” “Dark room,” “Hart Chart,” “Self as daughter,” “Zoológico, circa 1982,” “I as letter in bottle,” “Reversal,” “Eclipse,” “Photograph of water as a mass noun,” “A orelha e o ouvido,” “Candling,” and “Dark room.”

Genres: Poetry

20 pages, Unknown Binding

Published December 31, 2020

About the author

Ananda Lima is the author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil (Tor Books, 2024) and Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, 2021), winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere). She is a Contributing Editor at Poets & Writers and Program Curator at StoryStudio, Chicago. Lima was a mentor at the NYFA Immigrant Artist Program and the inaugural Latinx-in-Publishing WIP Fellow, sponsored by Macmillan Publishers. She has an MA in Linguistics (UCLA) and an MFA in Creative Writing (Rutgers-Newark). Craft, her fiction debut, was longlisted for the ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal. The New York Times describes it as “a remarkable debut that announces the arrival of a towering talent in speculative fiction.” Originally from Brazil, she lives in Chicago and New York.

Reviews

[Carla Sofia Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning. I'll definitely be rereading this and will write a longer review then but for now, just sitting with and savoring its brilliance. Wow wow wow.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little chapbook will blur and clarify your vision! Read it.