Figment

by Leila Chatti

In grief, language eludes, shifts, breaks down, betrays. FIGMENT is an attempt to articulate the inarticulable, to glean meaning from scraps of language, and to see clearly that which exists just out of view. Through fragments and the abecedarian form, Leila Chatti parses the experience of pregnancy loss and the anguish of failed creation. Figment is a work of accumulation--words exist individually like dots of paint, which, when observed at a distance, reveal the larger subject. "Leila Chatti's Figment reminded me of Inger Christensen's alphabet but a much sparser version. The sparseness in these poems mirror the fleeting spareness of a small body which once existed but no longer exists in physical form, but just memory and imagination. The main gesture, then, in Chatti's apparitions is absence and thus what's not on the page is equally as important as what's on the page. In this way, this beautiful sequence is really exploring existentialism as a whole, mortality, and our limited time on this planet, as the poet 'faint yes brief / yes but here' with no punctuation and floating on the page."--Victoria Chang, author of The Trees Witness Everything "What comes after the desperate vulnerability of hope? The radiant candor of loss--'one good thing / undone.' Leila Chatti's language is a fruit unpeeling--'yesterwas / yondermost'--inviting us to taste it, draw it into our own mouths. Figment is one of our best young poets at the height of her powers."--Kaveh Akbar, author of Pilgrim Bell Poetry. Women's Studies.

Genres: Poetry

48 pages, Hardcover

Published November 8, 2022

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you mourn what you have never seen, a dream flowing away without ever being touched? This slim volume is a beautiful spare lament for the loss of a pregnancy and the figure of a child not born. These poems evoke an absence in the way they spread across the pages. The grief here is constrained in the formal premise of poems with words beginning with the same letter, progressing through the alphabet like the progression of a pregnancy making the interruptions and departures from the pattern even more devastating. The ringing of the repeated sounds is like keening or ululation and has a profound effect. This collection not only evokes the way the existence of a lost child can seem like a figment or dream, but the way in which all grief defies belief, that there ever was a world in which the beloved existed, that there could ever be a world in which they were gone. This is a physically and poetically beautiful volume, a testament to the power of unreconciled grief.

[Elizabeth Belter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Figment is a book-length poem about the grief of a miscarriage. With this innovative take on an abecedarian poem, Chatti explores what it feels like to mourn a loved one you could never fully meet, to lose someone you could never truly touch. She writes, “uncarry unsuckle unrock uncoo / unswaddle uncradle unsleep unwake / unbabble uncry unsing unlullaby.” White space and silence convey as much meaning as words in this collection. With many caesuras and little punctuation, these lines are breathy and airy, but they are held together by alliteration, unexpected rhymes, and a theme of loss. This writing style reminds me of how traumatic events linger in the mind like fragments floating with the same emotional resonance. If you are looking for poetry that plays with form and embraces language's musicality, this book is a must-read.

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Figment is a heartbreaking and beautiful poem; an amazingly lyrical sequence; an interrupted abecedarian sung to the "yesterwas yondermost you" the poem so deeply yearns for and mourns. And the embossed cover design is genius: the visually barely there of the title vs its very tactile thereness on the solid black rectangle the book makes. It seems to illustrate the lines in the "I cried" section of Figment and how they speak to the unanswerable there/not there:
a mistake
a mistake
to think

you nothing nothing
is nothing

[Adrian Cepeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Figment, Leila Chatti becomes the modern-day Sappho. Although each of the spaces in Figment are filled with grief, I also find there is also hope within these alliterative line breaks, within the painful rhymes, “words only have gathered” glowing for all who are mourning, grieving. these are the poems for the lost to discover from a faraway voice, like our most memorable poets, whispering- you are not the only one.

[Amy]

I didn't connect with this volume as I did with the other two Chatti books I've read (Tunsiya/Amrikiya and Deluge), which were stunning. Might have been too sparse, or perhaps the subject matter doesn't resonate with me, as someone who has never actively tried to conceive or desperately wanted a baby.

[Fish Food · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chatti is an absolute genius. everything she writes is gold

[Debs · Rating 4 out of 5]

The little assonance/alliteration monster in me disappeared into this cadence of grief and mourning.

[B · Rating 5 out of 5]

So brilliant and moving, this one will stick with me always

[Gabi Yeary · Rating 5 out of 5]

yet again, chatti goes above and beyond with everything she manages to do. absolutely phenomenal with this. it’s so refreshing to have an artist willing to discuss the struggles of womanhood and of the body in full-detail.