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A review by prettymuchbooks
Self-Mythology: Poems by Saba Keramati
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
“God is so singular in his existence.
It must be lonely. All that power.
No one to share it with. I think it is a price
I would pay, lonely as I am.
I have been looking for another like me
and I have yet to find them. Still
I am not so bold to think I am beyond
imagination…
…
All this to say, my conception of myself
is solitary without worship…
…
I dream of a future me, and maybe she
is the god I invoke, the one I beseech to live.”
— excerpted from the poem, “Invocation”
Let me start by saying that I low key LOVE when a book is slim yet contains so much! In Saba Keramati’s debut poetry collection, SELF-MYTHOLOGY we get just that in a book filled with 49 poems — you bet I was very thrilled to start reading! 🙌🏽🤩🙏🏽
In the first poem, “THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SAY THIS,” we are presented with the poet as Chinese-Iranian through her parents and the language they speak, the way English and more so, America, makes one “move closer to a life without language.”
In the poem, “Chimera,” Keramati says, “I admit / I am interested in my own thinking, obsessed with discovery and answers / because: how devastating to be wrong about who you are.” These are the sort of lines that stuck out to me in this book — “There are too many truths here” as the first poem says.
In “Self-Portrait with Crescent Moon and Plum Blossoms,” we get this image of “mosquitoes / running rampant” and i like how the stinging that occurs, that pain is indicative of how the poet feels: “Suck the unbelonging // out of me,” she implores. Then says a little later:
“I shape myself with the emblems I can gather.
Let me write myself here, with these symbols
I claim to know, swear are in my lineage—
proving myself to my own desire
to be seen.” ✨
The relationship between the poet and poetry is also on display in this book as she notes how she has “always shrouded [herself] in poems. / I thought I was clever but I was hiding.” SAME!! 🙈
“There is so much left to understand.
There are things I do not know about my ancestry
because I am afraid to ask.
Where would I put it down?”
Other poems that I love:
The “Cento for Loneliness & Writer’s Block & the Fear of Never Being Enough, Despite Being Surrounded by Asian American Poets” I, II, & III:❣️
“Devotion”: ❤️🔥
“Fire Season Grows Longer”: A poem I almost considered starting my post with and hope to lead a future post with when I reread the book 🌎
“Ars Poetica Ghazal”: YUP another one to reflect upon revisiting in a post!
“Rewrite: I Go Back”: this one inspired me to start a poem and and need to go back to doing just that on my next writing session ✍🏽
It must be lonely. All that power.
No one to share it with. I think it is a price
I would pay, lonely as I am.
I have been looking for another like me
and I have yet to find them. Still
I am not so bold to think I am beyond
imagination…
…
All this to say, my conception of myself
is solitary without worship…
…
I dream of a future me, and maybe she
is the god I invoke, the one I beseech to live.”
— excerpted from the poem, “Invocation”
Let me start by saying that I low key LOVE when a book is slim yet contains so much! In Saba Keramati’s debut poetry collection, SELF-MYTHOLOGY we get just that in a book filled with 49 poems — you bet I was very thrilled to start reading! 🙌🏽🤩🙏🏽
In the first poem, “THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SAY THIS,” we are presented with the poet as Chinese-Iranian through her parents and the language they speak, the way English and more so, America, makes one “move closer to a life without language.”
In the poem, “Chimera,” Keramati says, “I admit / I am interested in my own thinking, obsessed with discovery and answers / because: how devastating to be wrong about who you are.” These are the sort of lines that stuck out to me in this book — “There are too many truths here” as the first poem says.
In “Self-Portrait with Crescent Moon and Plum Blossoms,” we get this image of “mosquitoes / running rampant” and i like how the stinging that occurs, that pain is indicative of how the poet feels: “Suck the unbelonging // out of me,” she implores. Then says a little later:
“I shape myself with the emblems I can gather.
Let me write myself here, with these symbols
I claim to know, swear are in my lineage—
proving myself to my own desire
to be seen.” ✨
The relationship between the poet and poetry is also on display in this book as she notes how she has “always shrouded [herself] in poems. / I thought I was clever but I was hiding.” SAME!! 🙈
“There is so much left to understand.
There are things I do not know about my ancestry
because I am afraid to ask.
Where would I put it down?”
Other poems that I love:
The “Cento for Loneliness & Writer’s Block & the Fear of Never Being Enough, Despite Being Surrounded by Asian American Poets” I, II, & III:❣️
“Devotion”: ❤️🔥
“Fire Season Grows Longer”: A poem I almost considered starting my post with and hope to lead a future post with when I reread the book 🌎
“Ars Poetica Ghazal”: YUP another one to reflect upon revisiting in a post!
“Rewrite: I Go Back”: this one inspired me to start a poem and and need to go back to doing just that on my next writing session ✍🏽