Recommended by: Stephen Dilley/@stephenjdilley
Form and Genre: Poetry Collection.
Length: 100 pages
Summary: Asghar is a South Asian American Muslim poet who explores issues relating to sexuality, race and violence in this collection. The 1947 Partition is used as a recurring idea throughout the collection to explore other forms of division and marginalisation.
Age recommendation and challenging content: Includes sexual content, violence and swearing – suitable for Years 12 & 13, and teachers might want to exercise some discretion about which poems to share with certain students. Some individual poems could also be shared with younger pupils.
Notable reasons for recommending this book: This collection is thematically rich and formally innovative with a fascinating range of contexts including the 1947 Partition, 9/11 and the Trump presidency. It would work very well as an NEA text for A Level English Literature.