The Outer Wards

by de Meijer Sadiqa

The Outer Wards, Sadiqa de Meijer’s new collection, explores questions of maternal love and duty—and the powerlessness that comes with the disruption of that role through illness. “I was awake. / The hour was wrong,” de Meijer writes, and her poems track, in visceral and tender detail, the distraction, exhaustion, exhilaration, and fear of child-rearing through crisis. For de Meijer, the experience was also a crisis of language, and the struggle to find new terms for her state. Addressed, in part, to a child she calls “my grievous spectacle, / my dearest unpossessable,” The Outer Wards is everywhere marked by a joy in words—their quick-fire turns, sumptuous sounds, and nursery-rhyme seductions.

Genres: Poetry

Kindle Edition

Published April 15, 2020

Reviews

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written. A real gem of a book.

[Jade Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wise, contemplative, observant book.