Objects from April and May
Meditations on treasure and mourning—and why our belongings can matter so deeply.
Finalist for the Alice James Book Award 2020, the Omnidawn First/Second Book Prize 2020 & the Philip Levine Poetry Prize 2020.
14 April 2022
Paperback / 9781914221125
ebook / 9781914221132
92 pages
‘Agha reminds us that any “thing,” even a girl’s bracelet can be sacred, if we make it so.’
— Words Without Borders
‘A moving collection written with love and defiance.’
— Isabella Hammad, author of The Parisian
‘Heartbreaking and gorgeous … explores the richness of life’s fleeting yet monumental moments, where everything is at stake.’
— Heba Hayek, author of Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies
Objects from April and May is a rumination on the sanctity and significance of cherished possessions. Informed by the loss of precious gold in an armed robbery, these poems trace each taken item across years and borders, from a supermarket in Brooklyn to a checkpoint in Occupied Palestine to an American compound in Iraq. Yet they return, irrevocably, to a violent interaction on a quiet street in Oakland, California, gathering its shattered fragments.
Formally inventive and politically astute, Zena Agha’s poems bristle with a controlled melancholy. As she unspools one traumatic encounter and its reverberations, she shows how much material loss can teach us about love, attachment and sorrow.
Zena Agha is a Palestinian-Iraqi writer and poet from London. She has received fellowships from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Her writing has been featured by The Margins, The New York Times and NPR. Objects from April and May is her first book.
Listen along to the Objects from April and May playlist, curated by Zena Agha.
‘Rich in memory, thought and materiality … Objects from April and May shows a serious conviction; a yearning for an alternative version of what is, and an imagining of what’s also possible.’
— Anthony Anaxagorou, author of After the Formalities
‘Zena Agha’s poems shape-shift … in an ongoing attempt to inventory what has gone missing: a stolen talisman and the lost homeland that it signified.’
— Ken Chen, author of Juvenilia
‘A book which feels “materially in the world”, whose poems-as-talismans can’t be stolen or lost, because they’re really alive.’
— Will Harris, author of RENDANG
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— Words Without Borders, 22 February 2024