My Grief, the Sun

by Sanna Wani

In Sanna Wani’s vivid debut poetry collection, the body is the page, time is a friend and every voice, a soul. Sharply political and frequently magical, these poems reach for everything from Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 film Princess Mononoke to German Orientalist scholarship on early Islam. In these often intimate poems, every verse invokes ode and elegy. Love and grief sit side by side. My Grief, the Sun listens carefully to the planet's breathing, addresses the endless and ineffable you, and promises enough joy and sorrow to keep growing.

From concrete to confessional poem, exegesis to erasure, the Missinnihe River in Canada to the Zabarwan Mountains in Kashmir, Wani undoes and complicates genre and gathers the world between the poet’s hands.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

112 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2022

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

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delicate, nuanced and moving collection by Kashmiri-Canadian poet Sanni Wani. She travels along the borderlines of culture, family, and faith, finding her way across a vast map of separation and questioning with keen intelligence and deep spirituality as guides.

The poems play with form and many are visually stunning, weaving words along the pages like a tapestry. Many read like conversations, others are like thoughts jotted down in a journal, then mused upon, expanded, caressed. Wani reflects on her family, the nature of separation and distance, the contradictions of faith and religion, identity as an immigrant, a woman, an artist, a Muslim, a daughter. These are poems of becoming.

The cover is so expressive in its simplicity. A white background with a circle of yellow in the center, overlaid by the outline of a bird in flight. At its most literal, this is the sun of the title. It is also reminiscent of a daisy, Sanna's favorite flower. It is the center of an egg, a thing complete in its perfection and possibility. It is also a visual that defies the word grief in the title, for the colors speak of fresh hope. As do the beautiful poems in this collection.

[nivedita · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best I can hope for is that this passes through you once, softly.

[Pau · Rating 5 out of 5]

sanna wani i am in LOVE with you!!!!!!!!!!!

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book has everything! after poem upon after poem & erasure of orientalists & stunning collages & a prose section to even it all out at the end. what a breathtaking work, so much personality in the pages, so much intimacy with the poet & their care. in awe !!

[Salty Swift · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasant enough meditative poetry debut from Canadian-Kashmiri author.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend reading the entire book aloud to yourself (ideally in nature). Truly spectacular.

[Laetitia · Rating 5 out of 5]

😭

[Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t have a lot to say about Sanna Wani’s My Grief, The Sun, except that it’s beautiful, profound, tender, and familiar. I love her voice. There’s a wide variety of themes in these poems but they are perfectly united by Wani’s voice. From poems about Princess Mononoke to poems about God, friendship, love, and grief, I felt embraced by her sense of self and comforted by her hope. I especially love when she writes about time, memory, and her parents. This is an amazing and soulful debut and I highly recommend it!

[Ollie Ander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of prose is not a casual read so be prepared for that when you pick it up. There are a lot of philosophical, existential ponderings that require time to digest.

As much as I enjoyed the exploration of grief, I did not vibe with the deep delve into questions/interpretations of God. It was interesting but not quite my cup of tea in that it was also quite indirect. I would rate this higher but I had to put it down and pick it up again (on a library loan) four plus times to manage to finish it, and my rating should reflect that lack of engagement.

[Miri · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I am eager for any mouth to open
that soft word, "what God wills."
Masha'Allah your hands are so gentle.
The baby is so happy, masha'Allah.
Masha'Allah we all have enough to eat."

Such a gorgeous and tender collection.

[Quoth the Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I dreamt / nothing was over as long / as we were alive."

Reading Sanna Wanni's debut My Grief, the Sun feels like wishful thinking. There was so much wanting and acknowledgement of reality, beauty and loss, and the ever happening push and pull of God in all things. This collection was cohesive and danced its themes of religion, family, warmth, and light throughout each poem.

"Tomorrow is a place we are / together."

However, I felt I kept asking myself "What is at stake here?" when reading each poem. The poems wanted to be vulnerable, but simultaneously and actively curved away from these moments of honesty and grounding. I wanted more probing to happen in each poem, but the poetry mostly catered to the beauty in light as opposed to the darkness light casts. I wanted this collection to allow itself to live in its opposites without being afraid.

[shezal · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have a bit of an attachment with this book, i think. i began reading it, undecidedly, on some day of the week while i was trapped inside the doctor's on-call duty room. running back and forth, fetching lab reports, adjusting to the newness of employment - i needed something familiar to anchor me and i couldn't really fathom the reality i was living so of course, i immersed myself in poetry, as usual. i adored wani's honesty, how she bares herself to her truth, and does not let fear stand in her way. most evocative were her poems on religion and spirituality, and i feel a little sad knowing i shared some of her lines with someone no longer in my life.

[Alycia · Rating 5 out of 5]

You ask, what does a word really mean in the Qur'an, when you should ask, what increases our bewilderment —"Theologians are Weavers"

Sanna Wani's debut collection is innovative in form and language. Collages, maps, odes, homages, and epigraphs intertwine with Wani's meditative lines to create an intertextual, stimulating reading experience. The lines themselves are in some poems sharp and precise, and in others, they feel deliberately loose; they cascade into prose and out again, particularly those pieces that are intimate addresses to friends, family, and poetic influences.

[alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intricate, vivid, bone deep, honest

a weaving together of words that bewilder, every verse is thought-provoking, enthralling.

Sanna captures grief in all its complex glory, how it seeps through light and exists in the seemingly mundane. Her verses on the creator and spirituality are transcendant and fresh

I was soaking in every word, every verse.

Can't believe this is a debut novel!

(Sanna, i may not know you but send me an arc of your next collection pretty please <3)

[Penn Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Beauty fractures form. It is no wonder we are confused.”

Fascinating takes on language that opens and expands perspective. The beauty of these poems fractures old forms into new.

“PARALLEL IS ALONE AT THE END OF THE LINE and what have we
gathered? Strokes of chronology and geology. Maps and nests of time.”

“Grief and I face
the dawn he disappears
into. Then we turn to
the sun.”

[Blair Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars, rounding up

There were a lot of things that I appreciated about this collection, but the variety, both in content and form, was the most noteworthy strength. However, I felt that certain poems were missing context that would have deepened their impact. I would definitely read another collection by this poet.

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the writing style of this poetry collection as well as the themes (love, grief, pain, faith, etc). They compliment each other in a near perfect way. As a non believer, reading about the way one loves God will always be fascinating. It is beautiful to see how a human can pour such unequivocal trust and adoration into a being, in a way I will probably never be able to do.

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

From grief to deep bonds, to longing, to place, to religion, to faith, the poems in My Grief, the Sun range widely, always returning to love and language—an unfettered playing field. Equally wide is the poems' experimentation with form. Concepts, phrases, images, subjects reappear in varying shapes, giving the collection its marvelous coherence and a sense of discovery in a secret garden.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

a tender, buoyant, and effervescent ride through joy, sorrow, and grief. full of excitement, breath, and honesty, Sanna Wani's delicate hand plants daisies of beauty in every little pit of dirt around every corner of life, making the most awkward, humiliating, and intrusive aspects feel worth their while because no one is fully alone.

[DeeSoul · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the first third of the book, doxology is defined as "a study in the glory of language." I believe this book is a kind of doxology, examining the distances between God and loss and the light shining between. I personally loved the last section, Distances, for the way Wani's earnestness grounds and breaks through, giving us a soft place to land.

[Jayson Campeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Sanna for bringing me back to poetry. Although I was not always sure I was reading poetry in the traditional sense while enjoying your collection, I did enjoy sharing your ideas. I might have missed some of the cultural and political references, and that’s ok, that will be for another reading, later, possibly when I too am struggling with grief.

[Suz · Rating 5 out of 5]

"But grief compels me, maybe more than sleep. I am waiting for something to last. I know nothing will. But I am waiting for mornings that do not end..."

An absolutely sublime work of poetry and prose exploring the themes of love, grief, and God.

[Sophie Crocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

i am mesmerized by this book<3 thank you sanna for writing it

[Syd Lazarus]

Gorgeous debut collection.

[Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sanna is my friend! So proud of her and this collection. Read most of it today, crying often.

[Beth Bauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quasi-religious, strangely melancholy poems from an Islamic worldview. Quite beautiful at times.

[Ayasha Nordiawan · Rating 5 out of 5]

so much love

[Maia · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a beautiful language the poet reaches for

[Lauren Ames · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not much of a poetry reader, but this collection was really touching and I enjoyed it!

[Brennen Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best collections of poetry I've read in awhile. Couldn't put it down.