The Signs of the Rose

About this book

Zeinab Shaker's free-verse collection inhabits the distance between presence and absence, homeland and dispersal, love and the edge of loss. Private emotion merges with public wound as the poet rearranges existence on the page, trying to hold fleeting moments before they disappear. The poems move between the wishes of a woman escaping an imposed time and a child searching for a homeland within the details of a poem. Their language rejects display in favour of deep simplicity, allowing words to seem as though they have chosen their own path from the poet's heart to the reader. For those who regard poetry as a final refuge, the collection offers a drop of hope, a way to remember love and grief, and a long conversation with the soul when rain is absent.