Books

Review by Francis Sheppard

Read these 20 poems straightoff and you will be taken by the intricacy and originality of the language. Return to them and, connections made, meanings spring to life. A third reading and the mind absorbs. This music revisits you at odd hours, as do the images – of gorgeous clothing, gleaming surfaces and precious stones.

You are aware of a present life that is Western, and a counterpart life that is lived through earliest memory, where family, the living and the dead, permeate thought with recollections of love and sweetness. A garment brings the past to life but it is fruits – apricots and damsons for instance – and foodstuffs, that bring alive knowledge that is transmitted through the generations. Little Parcels finds joy in the preparation of the evening meal through a long day of the Ramadan fast, the stages being marked by three prayers on the way to nightfall. These are samosas that are being rolled out, filled, spiced and fried. Elsewhere, an orange ‘sliced in the shape of my mouth’ recalls a moment of childhood bliss, drenched by water and sunlight, amid an older generation always watchful for the safety and sustenance of the young.

As much counterpart-life is the poet’s exploration of the body’s passing-on of life, the bringing of the new as reflection of the dying-away of the old. Reading Saghir’s collection is to encounter pain and loss, counterbalanced by happiness.