Archipelago

by Laila Malik

The islands of an archipelago are isolated above sea level but attached underwater; connected yet separate. archipelago, the debut poetry collection from Laila Malik, traces fragments of family, becoming and unbecoming against the shifting shorelines of loss, multigenerational migration, and (un)belonging.

Malik's lyrical poems intertwine histories of exile and ecological devastation. Beginning with a coming of age in the 80s and 90s between Canada, the Arabian Gulf, East Africa and Kashmir, they subvert conventions of lineage, instead drawing on the truths of inter-ethnic histories amidst sparse landscapes of deserts, oceans, and mountains. They question why the only certainties of "home" are urgency and impossibility.

At its core, archipelago is a letter to the daughters who come before and after, a quiet disclosure of barbed ancestral legacies that only come into focus through poetry.

Genres: Poetry

89 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 6, 2023

Reviews

[Sunni | vanreads]

“if home is where we have neither stolen land nor spilled blood
where the earth runs thick with our dna

there is no home.

only shadowpeople like us
forged with memory shards
into an awkward state of namelessness painfully perched on someone else's burial ground.”

Grief, loss, migration, history are all themes in this beautiful poetry collection, ARCHIPELAGO by Laila Malik. I don’t know with what words to describe this, besides how much I loved it and how it made me feel some sort of way thinking of my family and all of the things we’ve been through to arrive where we are today.

So I leave you with a snippet from this collection, in hopes that if you also resonate with the loneliness and fragmented nature of the diaspora experience, you’ll find yourself at home in this book.

Thank you Bookhug Press for the review copy!

Visit my Instagram @vanreads for more of my reviews.

[chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

this one is not a friend.

it is not distance or length that makes it unbreachable, not skull-crushing depths. not the songs of
souls riding the last right whales beyond the horizon into never again.

there are mystical ecosystems of prehistoric micro-organisms, tucked away within subaquatic
thermal vents. it is the planet's tallest mountain range, hiding in plain sight. seabed a powder of
crushed human bones. they are the wrong bones.

not a friend. not even an enemy. only a great, churning ocean of indifference.

there was once a strong swimmer, who was you. you swam mostly at night, but never in open
water. that was strictly forbidden, and also a bit frightening: you were a deeply committed coward.
you swam circles in a small rectangle of flaking paint. you were a wrong whale in saltsuctioned
water, swimming circles in a rectangle. but you swam. in warm water, under a black ocean sky.

-- "wrong bones"

[hiaa123 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know how to write about poetry. I liked the wordplay in this collection.
My favourite poems were fajr is the loneliest number and crooked elbows.

[julia! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Try finishing this silly poem collection high af at 1:33am on the TTC— wow. important book.

[Irene Mckay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great poetry read. Full of inspirational thoughts.


3.8/5 ⭐️

[Jess✧✵ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laila Malik is a gorgeous imagist. Her collection masterfully blends ecology and multi-generational saga. I really enjoyed reading this one!