What do you think?
Rate this book
New Names for Lost Things
A poetic meditation on identity, loss, and loneliness from the bestselling poet and visual artist
An all-new illustrated poetry collection from the bestselling author of yesterday i was the moon , New Names for Lost Things combines Noor Unnahar’s powerful poetic voice and her signature collage-style visual art for a book of highly personal reflections on loss, inheritance, and what is left behind on the nonlinear path to becoming who you are meant to be.
An all-new illustrated poetry collection from the bestselling author of yesterday i was the moon , New Names for Lost Things combines Noor Unnahar’s powerful poetic voice and her signature collage-style visual art for a book of highly personal reflections on loss, inheritance, and what is left behind on the nonlinear path to becoming who you are meant to be.
144 pages, Paperback
Published October 19, 2021
66 people are currently reading
1939 people want to read
About the author
Noor Unnahar
4 books749 followersNoor Unnahar is a modern-day artist and poet whose work combines handwritten text, illustrations, tactile collage, and photography to illuminate themes of hope, home, self-love, culture, acceptance, and survival. Her poetry has been translated into a number of languages, which include published translations of her debut collection Yesterday I Was the Moon (Penguin Random House, 2018) in Dutch (Gisteren Was Ik De Maan, MUSE, 2019) and Chinese (Pan Press, 2021).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 214 reviews
September 21, 2021
Poems on loneliness, grief, family, the art of creating a poem only possible when one is not happy, home, city life, ghost and mango trees. Despite this wide range of topics the bundle feels detached and more esthetic than viscerally personal.
If I were a whisper, I would be about heartbreak and burning paper.
If anything New Names for Lost Things is definitely a beautiful work in terms of the illustrations and collages from Noor Unnahar included in the bundle.
I enjoyed reading the poems, but felt there was quite some overlap in vocabulary in some of the works, and also in general topics. Grief, city life far from home and loneliness have a 80% change of appearing in any poem in the bundle, and while it's good to have some cohesiveness I would have appreciated a bit more variety. Also a lot of the poems, despite the topics handled, feel kind of distant. Still I enjoyed and wrote down quite a few, and a female poetess from Pakistan is definitely something to celebrate.
Lucid dreaming
Everything I know about you, I know from the absence of you.
All the crushed glass on the road I once thought was water is coming back to me. I wash my hands and there’s blood everywhere.
I run the faucets and they only glow. This city has been eating its loneliness again (I thought you should know about this).
A personal tragedy
This unstitched loneliness keeps bleeding out of my hands. I was always ready to be someone else. To be remembered like a fabricated war history. Reunion with myself remains a personal tragedy. But to be a poet without being tragic would have been quite a shame.
Dawning
You were so protected once -
it almost made you ungrateful. Look what
safety does to bodies reliant on it. I could
have been something else. A cobalt sparrow
on a withering tree. A fragile pearl on a cashmere coat.
An unnamed star adjacent to the moon. But I was given this life. Too many wants stitched inside a warm blood house. I could have left it behind. But I was given this time.
A tired confession
good god,
my guilt has three faces &
none of them was born with eyes.
why does a heart inherit a cage
but no key to keep it there?
I will drown if my anger asks me to.
it has an ocean to its name. it has
everything I wasn’t given.
Notes left for a stranger at the nameless park in my hometown
Cowardice is bravery halfway a long road. I remember all the skies tomorrow stole but counting them will cost the loss of another one.
What else do you know about home besides how it falls apart?
Even forgiveness sounds like an aggrieved blame in your voice.
There is road tinted by everything yesterday left behind. I have been sleepwalking on it.
Selected quotes:
The heart is a lawless land
Someday, you will look for a language but will find only a scream instead.
I am grateful for everyone who had power but didn’t exercise it on me.
somewhere between the teeth of grief, there’s still enough space for us to get out. I say we get out. - Lately
May your grief find a dark fine door ajar and leave.
I am only a poet when I am crying
If I were a whisper, I would be about heartbreak and burning paper.
If anything New Names for Lost Things is definitely a beautiful work in terms of the illustrations and collages from Noor Unnahar included in the bundle.
I enjoyed reading the poems, but felt there was quite some overlap in vocabulary in some of the works, and also in general topics. Grief, city life far from home and loneliness have a 80% change of appearing in any poem in the bundle, and while it's good to have some cohesiveness I would have appreciated a bit more variety. Also a lot of the poems, despite the topics handled, feel kind of distant. Still I enjoyed and wrote down quite a few, and a female poetess from Pakistan is definitely something to celebrate.
Lucid dreaming
Everything I know about you, I know from the absence of you.
All the crushed glass on the road I once thought was water is coming back to me. I wash my hands and there’s blood everywhere.
I run the faucets and they only glow. This city has been eating its loneliness again (I thought you should know about this).
A personal tragedy
This unstitched loneliness keeps bleeding out of my hands. I was always ready to be someone else. To be remembered like a fabricated war history. Reunion with myself remains a personal tragedy. But to be a poet without being tragic would have been quite a shame.
Dawning
You were so protected once -
it almost made you ungrateful. Look what
safety does to bodies reliant on it. I could
have been something else. A cobalt sparrow
on a withering tree. A fragile pearl on a cashmere coat.
An unnamed star adjacent to the moon. But I was given this life. Too many wants stitched inside a warm blood house. I could have left it behind. But I was given this time.
A tired confession
good god,
my guilt has three faces &
none of them was born with eyes.
why does a heart inherit a cage
but no key to keep it there?
I will drown if my anger asks me to.
it has an ocean to its name. it has
everything I wasn’t given.
Notes left for a stranger at the nameless park in my hometown
Cowardice is bravery halfway a long road. I remember all the skies tomorrow stole but counting them will cost the loss of another one.
What else do you know about home besides how it falls apart?
Even forgiveness sounds like an aggrieved blame in your voice.
There is road tinted by everything yesterday left behind. I have been sleepwalking on it.
Selected quotes:
The heart is a lawless land
Someday, you will look for a language but will find only a scream instead.
I am grateful for everyone who had power but didn’t exercise it on me.
somewhere between the teeth of grief, there’s still enough space for us to get out. I say we get out. - Lately
May your grief find a dark fine door ajar and leave.
I am only a poet when I am crying
August 28, 2022
Maybe I was expecting too much from the new poetry collection by one of my all-time favourite writers.
I could relate to the lines and I felt the connection. But somehow I felt they were written for someone else and I was reading about it. It's beautiful yet I felt like they needed to be mine when I read them.
I like the real pictures as well as the abstract sketches in between.
A good read but I still feel the author's previous collection is my all-time favourite.
Thank you author and the publisher for the advance reader copy.
I could relate to the lines and I felt the connection. But somehow I felt they were written for someone else and I was reading about it. It's beautiful yet I felt like they needed to be mine when I read them.
I like the real pictures as well as the abstract sketches in between.
A good read but I still feel the author's previous collection is my all-time favourite.
Thank you author and the publisher for the advance reader copy.
October 22, 2021
noor unnahar it’s not you it’s this collection :/ visually very pleasing but just seemed so.... sloppy? this felt at least a couple drafts away from the final edit, and the words still so constrained—the themes are so repetitive that you don’t get to appreciate the beautiful motifs. the poems that i loved, i loved a lot (stuck in history, an okay family, name your loneliness, winters named after my mother, a list of words that are shapeshifters, in line of duty) but overall i was tired by the end of this, and not in a good way. still, i adore the writer, the #desirepresentation of course, and would not recommend anyone against reading her work for this is simply a judgement on an edition whose style i could not appreciate.
August 17, 2021
CANNOT WAIT TO READ THIS!!!!!
October 6, 2021
These poems were so honest and raw. Mainly they were directed towards family issues and memories that i personally cannot relate to; obviously that doesn’t mean the poems were bad there are just probably some people out there that this would hit much harder for. nevertheless it was a beautiful novel, intertwined with pieces of art throughout which were aesthetically pleasing.
September 9, 2023
I'd like to thank Andrews McMeel Publishing, Noor Unnahar and NetGalley for providing me a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Why this book didn't work out for me and received 1.5 stars (rounded up to 2)?
Personally, I think the cover of this book is a hit, and the author seems nice. I felt sorry for the things she's been through and I appreciate that she prays for her and the people around her.
I also enjoyed that throughout there are some gorgeous pictures with added elements and words, they were uniquely made.
But what was the miss for me and made me feel bad while reading this was that I completely felt in a mist. While reading this poetry collection I felt constantly like the author shared stuff and expected the reader to understand what it meant. Yes, it did had a lot of beautiful expressions and the word "moon" was there a lot, which is my favourite element. But even so, her message to the reader was hidden, only known by her.
I just couldn't understand what she was trying to say, there were a lot of random things I couldn't catch. Maybe it is my methodic brain that doesn't get this artistic creation. But for me, personally, was a miss.
Also, there were barely any rhymes. I don't say that rhymes are an absolute must (I myself enjoyed poems without rhymes), but there's always a pleasure in them, which here kind of lacked.
In the end there was a glossary with terms and their meaning (also with the poem it was from), which I enjoyed pretty much.
One poem that I liked better was [Part-Everything Daughter].
Why this book didn't work out for me and received 1.5 stars (rounded up to 2)?
Personally, I think the cover of this book is a hit, and the author seems nice. I felt sorry for the things she's been through and I appreciate that she prays for her and the people around her.
I also enjoyed that throughout there are some gorgeous pictures with added elements and words, they were uniquely made.
But what was the miss for me and made me feel bad while reading this was that I completely felt in a mist. While reading this poetry collection I felt constantly like the author shared stuff and expected the reader to understand what it meant. Yes, it did had a lot of beautiful expressions and the word "moon" was there a lot, which is my favourite element. But even so, her message to the reader was hidden, only known by her.
Here / you name your own loneliness / I have named mine Clementine / we forgot it at a store last night / it grew two legs and ran outside / your loneliness is called Asparagus / none of us ever learned to spell it right / but you do not leave it behind / I keep a pocket dictionary / to name everyone's loneliness right / my mother's - named after roses / my father's - rhymes with flight / if you don't want to name it / call it [a thing to remember] / call it [a purple plastic knife]
I just couldn't understand what she was trying to say, there were a lot of random things I couldn't catch. Maybe it is my methodic brain that doesn't get this artistic creation. But for me, personally, was a miss.
Also, there were barely any rhymes. I don't say that rhymes are an absolute must (I myself enjoyed poems without rhymes), but there's always a pleasure in them, which here kind of lacked.
In the end there was a glossary with terms and their meaning (also with the poem it was from), which I enjoyed pretty much.
One poem that I liked better was [Part-Everything Daughter].
December 20, 2021
As with all poetry that is not written by Michael Ondaatje, I have poems I resonated with and poems that were okay, I guess. Noor Unnahar does have a distinct way of coining phrases. It borders on the Tumblr aesthetic without being full-on Rupi Kaur thank God!
My favourite poems were The Hunted and Pockets. There was a line, "You were so protected once - it almost made you ungrateful." that will live with me for the rest of my life. I never thought about my overprotective background as having made me ungrateful until the moment I read the line and now it is all I can think of.
My favourite poems were The Hunted and Pockets. There was a line, "You were so protected once - it almost made you ungrateful." that will live with me for the rest of my life. I never thought about my overprotective background as having made me ungrateful until the moment I read the line and now it is all I can think of.
March 29, 2022
New Names for Lost Things is a collection of hauntingly beautiful poems about loss, grief, and loneliness. Many of them center around family. The visuals were fitting, aesthetically pleasing, and simple yet thought provoking. While I didn’t connect with these poems as I have Unnahar’s previous works, I still enjoyed the tone. I appreciate the depth and raw emotion poured into each piece. I believe all poetry lovers, especially fans of Unnahar, will enjoy this collection.
October 21, 2021
3.8 ⭐️
I finished this in only 45 minutes and thank you to Net Galley for an e-ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review.
it’s been a long time since i read poetry book. This poetry collection talks about loss, loneliness, grief, family, losing and finding yourself. It’s a really good one. I found it a little bit relatable with myself. They were beautiful written.
I especially enjoyed the poems “ an invitation “ and “ reverse “. These two is one of my favs.
The only thing i don’t quite enjoyed is the image with and without words. I don’t sure are they related or what. Just a lil bit confused. But overall it’s good.
I finished this in only 45 minutes and thank you to Net Galley for an e-ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review.
it’s been a long time since i read poetry book. This poetry collection talks about loss, loneliness, grief, family, losing and finding yourself. It’s a really good one. I found it a little bit relatable with myself. They were beautiful written.
I especially enjoyed the poems “ an invitation “ and “ reverse “. These two is one of my favs.
The only thing i don’t quite enjoyed is the image with and without words. I don’t sure are they related or what. Just a lil bit confused. But overall it’s good.
May 13, 2022
Really solid poetry collection. I thought the pieces about family were some of the strongest in the collection and I greatly enjoyed them. Definitely at the end there were some poems that were hard-hitting: last words, notes left for a stranger at the nameless park in my hometown come to mind. I would definitely read it again!
January 22, 2022
It’s definitely for someone but that someone’s not me. Felt like it was trying to be more aesthetic than deep and didn’t hit me personally but maybe I’m not the target demographic.
February 2, 2022
Not the best poetry collection I’ve read. It read like a poem trying too hard to be a poem with its repetition of words/images and inability to create actual depth.
October 11, 2021
Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC on this collection of poems by Noor Unnahar.
As stated in the summary, this is a collection of poems on identity, loss, and loneliness. I had an interesting experience reading this book because of the visual arts that caught my eyes. I was lost in them, and can't stop admiring the talent. The poems are elegiac, the choice of words and rhythm so melodious. Sadly I can only relate to a few of them. Nevertheless, I am glad to have given this book a read.
My favorite poem from this collection is [Ms. Loneliness].
As stated in the summary, this is a collection of poems on identity, loss, and loneliness. I had an interesting experience reading this book because of the visual arts that caught my eyes. I was lost in them, and can't stop admiring the talent. The poems are elegiac, the choice of words and rhythm so melodious. Sadly I can only relate to a few of them. Nevertheless, I am glad to have given this book a read.
My favorite poem from this collection is [Ms. Loneliness].
October 13, 2021
Rating: 3.25 🌟
First and foremost, I'd like to express my gratitude to Netgalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this copy.
Disclaimer: This review is solely based on my own opinion.
Loneliness, bereavement, and connection are all addressed in this collection of poems. Reading about it with the explanatory graphics in between was both magnificent and tragic at the same time. However, I couldn't seem to be drawn to it as much as I usually am while reading poetry.
October 29, 2021
I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley.
This is a very personal poetry collection. There were several photographs and illustrations (some of them with text) throughout the book which wrapped it up really nicely. I did enjoy reading the poems, they're are some really lovely ones, but overall the book didn't amaze me. Rating: 3/5 stars.
This is a very personal poetry collection. There were several photographs and illustrations (some of them with text) throughout the book which wrapped it up really nicely. I did enjoy reading the poems, they're are some really lovely ones, but overall the book didn't amaze me. Rating: 3/5 stars.
January 26, 2022
This collection focuses on feelings of loneliness and isolation, loss and identity, and while I appreciated the range in this, a lot of these poems felt detached and more focused on aesthetics instead of being personal.
Want to read
July 2, 2024my lyft driver recommended this to me and then performed her latest slam poetry hit. great weekend tbh.
March 30, 2025
honestly couldn’t really get in to this but i gave it an extra star because it was a gift from celeste & she left me cute notes in it
May 23, 2023
I am left underwhelmed by this collection of poetry.
There was a handful of poems that I quite enjoyed, but not enough to raise my rating.
It’s overall a beautiful book, and I was seduced by the cover. But there was so much repetition in the poems, and despite all the repetition I still don’t know what Noor was trying to say. Words like moon, home, city, loneliness and light were repeated through out the 100+ pages and there was still no cohesiveness. The visual art could have supported the poetry in a better way, unfortunately it did not. Which is a shame to be honest, this could have been something beautiful.
I couldn’t connect to this body of work at all. It felt like the poet was speaking in riddles and not inviting the reader in on the secret. I just felt like an unwanted spectator. Why would you publish poetry if you did not want to connect to others in some way?
In conclusion, I am giving up on contemporary poetry. This free form writing is not working for me.
There was a handful of poems that I quite enjoyed, but not enough to raise my rating.
It’s overall a beautiful book, and I was seduced by the cover. But there was so much repetition in the poems, and despite all the repetition I still don’t know what Noor was trying to say. Words like moon, home, city, loneliness and light were repeated through out the 100+ pages and there was still no cohesiveness. The visual art could have supported the poetry in a better way, unfortunately it did not. Which is a shame to be honest, this could have been something beautiful.
I couldn’t connect to this body of work at all. It felt like the poet was speaking in riddles and not inviting the reader in on the secret. I just felt like an unwanted spectator. Why would you publish poetry if you did not want to connect to others in some way?
In conclusion, I am giving up on contemporary poetry. This free form writing is not working for me.
November 16, 2021
"I'm scared of abundance / even of love / even of loss"
4.5 ✨
Noor Unnahar created a beautiful poetry collection about love, loss, and inheritance. New Names for Lost Things not only has a gorgeous cover but the contents are even better. It feels so hard to put into words the experience I had with this book, so all I can say is it felt like home and memory and childhood and growing up and gaining and losing.
Here is a list of my favorite poems:
- From My Forgetfulness
- Reverse
- My Mother Asks about Love
- A Lonely Jon
- A List of Words That Are Shapeshifters: Part II
- An Abandoned To-Do List
- Eyes of the Present
- History of My Family
- A Twisted Narrative of My Dismay
4.5 ✨
Noor Unnahar created a beautiful poetry collection about love, loss, and inheritance. New Names for Lost Things not only has a gorgeous cover but the contents are even better. It feels so hard to put into words the experience I had with this book, so all I can say is it felt like home and memory and childhood and growing up and gaining and losing.
Here is a list of my favorite poems:
- From My Forgetfulness
- Reverse
- My Mother Asks about Love
- A Lonely Jon
- A List of Words That Are Shapeshifters: Part II
- An Abandoned To-Do List
- Eyes of the Present
- History of My Family
- A Twisted Narrative of My Dismay
March 5, 2022
These poems cracked me open and live inside my ribcage now. I don’t know how else to say it.
January 3, 2022
Actual rating: 4 1/2 stars.
“But to be a poet without being tragic would have been quite a shame.”
Hoooollllly crap.
When I read Noor’s first book “yesterday i was the moon” I was deeply impressed with her sweet, artistically expressed pieces. Her poems ARE the closest things to art I have ever read.
But when I started reading “new names for lost things,” that same expectation to be impressed completely shattered every preconceived idea I had created in my head. 80% of Noor’s poetry in her second book COMPLETELY smacked me in the face, and in the most raw and poetic way possible. Lines like this made me jealous, because I wish I had come up with them myself:
“Like when the sun sets, it mustn’t set into a corpse. Like when the moon comes out, it should do so without a bullet in it.”
*Like, OH my GOSH. HOW does she write lines like that??!?!*
Her poetry in general is breathtakingly fresh, original, raw, artistic, and subtly emotional, but it brings out EVERY emotion in me. The back of her book expressed how her poetry would reflect grief, sorrow, loss, and loneliness, but we got all that in such a FRESH way I couldn’t stop rereading virtually every line she wrote. I’m jealous, I’m speechless, I’m inspired, I’m emotionally wrecked and healed simultaneously…and I honestly have no more words, so I’ll share a few more lines by Noor. Because she has gained not only my admiration of her work, but a very reverent, well deserved respect and awe.
“The art remembers everything the artist left behind. Even the prayers. Even the blood.”
Just go freaking read her books. I love you Noor Unnahar.
“But to be a poet without being tragic would have been quite a shame.”
Hoooollllly crap.
When I read Noor’s first book “yesterday i was the moon” I was deeply impressed with her sweet, artistically expressed pieces. Her poems ARE the closest things to art I have ever read.
But when I started reading “new names for lost things,” that same expectation to be impressed completely shattered every preconceived idea I had created in my head. 80% of Noor’s poetry in her second book COMPLETELY smacked me in the face, and in the most raw and poetic way possible. Lines like this made me jealous, because I wish I had come up with them myself:
“Like when the sun sets, it mustn’t set into a corpse. Like when the moon comes out, it should do so without a bullet in it.”
*Like, OH my GOSH. HOW does she write lines like that??!?!*
Her poetry in general is breathtakingly fresh, original, raw, artistic, and subtly emotional, but it brings out EVERY emotion in me. The back of her book expressed how her poetry would reflect grief, sorrow, loss, and loneliness, but we got all that in such a FRESH way I couldn’t stop rereading virtually every line she wrote. I’m jealous, I’m speechless, I’m inspired, I’m emotionally wrecked and healed simultaneously…and I honestly have no more words, so I’ll share a few more lines by Noor. Because she has gained not only my admiration of her work, but a very reverent, well deserved respect and awe.
“The art remembers everything the artist left behind. Even the prayers. Even the blood.”
Just go freaking read her books. I love you Noor Unnahar.
October 15, 2021
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this title in exchange for my honest review.
I have recently developed a passion for poetry (within the past two years or so). Since this is new to me, I’m trying to find styles and poets that I really enjoy, so take this with a grain of salt.
I did find it difficult for me to connect with the majority of the poems, but they were by no means badly written. I just feel like many of the poems were the exact same with minor variations. I’m used to poetry books that might contain a certain theme, like loneliness, but they describe how the feeling of loneliness affects different aspects of their life or how it looks different when looking at the feeling through the eyes of a certain relationship. (I hope that made sense.) However, maybe I just feel loneliness in a completely different way than the author and that’s okay.
I did enjoy and connect with some of the poems though. These are of my personal favorites from the book: “Promises in Making”, “A Personal Tragedy”, “Dawning”, “A Tired Confession”, “Remembering the Daughters”, “A List of Words That Are Shapeshifters”, “Athena”, “Stargazing”, “A Dialogue with Death”, and “A Non-Worldly Sketch of My Room”.
I enjoyed the photos and art that was sprinkled throughout. (I imagine they are gorgeous in color too.)
I have recently developed a passion for poetry (within the past two years or so). Since this is new to me, I’m trying to find styles and poets that I really enjoy, so take this with a grain of salt.
I did find it difficult for me to connect with the majority of the poems, but they were by no means badly written. I just feel like many of the poems were the exact same with minor variations. I’m used to poetry books that might contain a certain theme, like loneliness, but they describe how the feeling of loneliness affects different aspects of their life or how it looks different when looking at the feeling through the eyes of a certain relationship. (I hope that made sense.) However, maybe I just feel loneliness in a completely different way than the author and that’s okay.
I did enjoy and connect with some of the poems though. These are of my personal favorites from the book: “Promises in Making”, “A Personal Tragedy”, “Dawning”, “A Tired Confession”, “Remembering the Daughters”, “A List of Words That Are Shapeshifters”, “Athena”, “Stargazing”, “A Dialogue with Death”, and “A Non-Worldly Sketch of My Room”.
I enjoyed the photos and art that was sprinkled throughout. (I imagine they are gorgeous in color too.)
July 2, 2022
“this is my letter to the world that never wrote to me” Part of personal grief that becomes a part of a memory. She said that the origin of art was always the end of self but the poems are representing a personal story of different type of family whose women are suns “My grandma thinks of me as another sun in the sky. She is even sure I have a moon of my own”. I fell in love with Noor Unnahar celestial language since I read her first book “yesterday I was the moon” she has soulful metaphor and cloudy expressions.
Fav quotes:
“The mirror on the wall
is so full of present
but sadly it wouldn’t reflect me
The problem was never
the past but the idea of a reluctant
tomorrow.”
“What I am today is everything the Future will forget
I could make things happen but I counted stars instead”
“the dried flowers over the head of my bed
were once a gift
now they’re a reminder”
“Homes stuffed into my heart”
Fav quotes:
“The mirror on the wall
is so full of present
but sadly it wouldn’t reflect me
The problem was never
the past but the idea of a reluctant
tomorrow.”
“What I am today is everything the Future will forget
I could make things happen but I counted stars instead”
“the dried flowers over the head of my bed
were once a gift
now they’re a reminder”
“Homes stuffed into my heart”
March 16, 2022
"Chewing A Death"
If an artist not making art is, as Pakistani poet and artist @noor_unnahar writes, "chewing a death," then this stunning collection of poetry is an exercise in defeating death. Or at least not chewing it. It does what poetry does best--awakens, reorients, concentrates, distills. Many poems left me speechless, several prompted me to send to friends before turning the page, and all of them spoke of the depth of loss, grief, life, memory, love, besuty and rebirth that follow in the wake of war, tragedy, and more ordinary human struggles.
My favourite poems in this collection were:
🌷Promises in New Making
🌷An archived panic
🌷The secret life of longing
🌷A questionnaire
🌷A confession of an artist
🌷Renaissance
🌷A lonely job
🌷Lost things with new names
🌷Reverse
🌷Pockets
🌷Arrival of love
If an artist not making art is, as Pakistani poet and artist @noor_unnahar writes, "chewing a death," then this stunning collection of poetry is an exercise in defeating death. Or at least not chewing it. It does what poetry does best--awakens, reorients, concentrates, distills. Many poems left me speechless, several prompted me to send to friends before turning the page, and all of them spoke of the depth of loss, grief, life, memory, love, besuty and rebirth that follow in the wake of war, tragedy, and more ordinary human struggles.
My favourite poems in this collection were:
🌷Promises in New Making
🌷An archived panic
🌷The secret life of longing
🌷A questionnaire
🌷A confession of an artist
🌷Renaissance
🌷A lonely job
🌷Lost things with new names
🌷Reverse
🌷Pockets
🌷Arrival of love
November 21, 2021
i really enjoyed it, i couldn't even put it down, always wanting more and more. all the poems sound vulnerable, way too honest. that's what makes it compelling. they speak about loneliness, grief, family relationship, intrapersonal issue. and i love how the author infused her culture and religion on the poems, which i mostly relate. though there are few ideas that i don't understand yet, like the concept of 'names' and 'weather' on some poems. what are they exactly? what meanings do they hold? i keep wondering. i think i don't grasp them yet because i haven't experienced 'them' and so i don't get their meanings.
March 20, 2022
{ 3.5 stars }
Personally, reading this was inspiring. It helped me reconnect with detached inner fragments of myself. For which, I’m truly grateful beyond words can describe.
I don’t want to be biased // 🥹
However, from a poetry reader’s perspective, I felt the depth lacking in many poems. The start feels amusing but by the end, it frays out to be just a bunch of lines. And so at times, it felt like many poems could be so much more.
But here’s the list of the ones I loved:
[A Ghazal]
[Inheritance]
[A Personal Tragedy]
[Dawning]
[Describe Yourself in a Poem]
[A Decision]
[A Reluctant Heir]
[In Line of Duty]
[Opening of a Window]
[Afterword]
[From My Forgetfulness]
[My Mother Asks about Love]
[Arrival of Love]
[A Poet’s Heart]
[An Artist Not Making Art]
[Name Your Loneliness]
[Our History]
[Mood Report]
[Stuck in History]
Noor, if you’re reading this, thank you for putting your art out! You’re amazing and can’t wait for what you create ahead. ❤️
Personally, reading this was inspiring. It helped me reconnect with detached inner fragments of myself. For which, I’m truly grateful beyond words can describe.
I don’t want to be biased // 🥹
However, from a poetry reader’s perspective, I felt the depth lacking in many poems. The start feels amusing but by the end, it frays out to be just a bunch of lines. And so at times, it felt like many poems could be so much more.
But here’s the list of the ones I loved:
[A Ghazal]
[Inheritance]
[A Personal Tragedy]
[Dawning]
[Describe Yourself in a Poem]
[A Decision]
[A Reluctant Heir]
[In Line of Duty]
[Opening of a Window]
[Afterword]
[From My Forgetfulness]
[My Mother Asks about Love]
[Arrival of Love]
[A Poet’s Heart]
[An Artist Not Making Art]
[Name Your Loneliness]
[Our History]
[Mood Report]
[Stuck in History]
Noor, if you’re reading this, thank you for putting your art out! You’re amazing and can’t wait for what you create ahead. ❤️
September 20, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for an advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
This poetry collection talks about loss and loneliness, and though it reads well, I didn't find it particularly compelling. However, I did enjoy the visual art pieces inserted between every few poems. I found that the images helped the poet to tell their story in a clearer way.
This poetry collection talks about loss and loneliness, and though it reads well, I didn't find it particularly compelling. However, I did enjoy the visual art pieces inserted between every few poems. I found that the images helped the poet to tell their story in a clearer way.
August 28, 2022
2.5/5
I have loved Noor Unnahar's "Yesterday I was the moon", so much that whenever I felt like not reading, I used to pick up that book and read over poems again and again. But this one didn't connect with me.
I feel it's authors personal grief that she is writing about.
Also writing about grief is trending these days. I am being blunt but it is what it is
I have loved Noor Unnahar's "Yesterday I was the moon", so much that whenever I felt like not reading, I used to pick up that book and read over poems again and again. But this one didn't connect with me.
I feel it's authors personal grief that she is writing about.
Also writing about grief is trending these days. I am being blunt but it is what it is
October 3, 2025
TW: loss and grief
I really loved the previous poetry collection by this author, so I was excited to dive back into her work. While I absolutely LOVE the writing style and have highlighted my fair share of this book, I came away thinking this collection was just fine.
Poetry is such a weird thing to review because it is such a personal experience. Not just for the poet, but for the reader as well. I’m interested to see what I would think about it in 5 or 10 years when I’m in a different season of life. Maybe some things would resonate more.
I really loved the previous poetry collection by this author, so I was excited to dive back into her work. While I absolutely LOVE the writing style and have highlighted my fair share of this book, I came away thinking this collection was just fine.
Poetry is such a weird thing to review because it is such a personal experience. Not just for the poet, but for the reader as well. I’m interested to see what I would think about it in 5 or 10 years when I’m in a different season of life. Maybe some things would resonate more.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 214 reviews