Radix Co-Op, chapbook
Publication Date: March 19, 2021
Publisher Marketing:
WINNER OF THE INAUGURAL OWN VOICES CHAPBOOK PRIZE SELECTED BY ARIA ABER
Girl, daughter, virgin—poems from an Arab-American girlhood.
Ghinwa Jawhari's debut collection is a meditation on the Arabic word 'bint' or 'girl.' The girl in these pages attempts to reconcile an American identity as a "mite of the wooden house." At the onset of her "acned year," she is "polluted with breasts," suddenly aware of her body and its reaction to other bodies. In BINT, the "palate succumbs to pleasure-crested pricks" just as the din of tradition continues to conjure "a valley of mirrors." The thrill of the unknown contrasts with what is taught, contextless, and insistent. Through it all, the future is discernible, and glistens on in the smoke, like Beirut's "blue neon of a prayer bead."
