Kirjahaku

POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATIONA piercing debut about how we are made, how we get lost and how we find new selves.Framed by the story of escape from a toxic marriage, Chaotic Good focuses on the incremental ways in which power accumulates, shifts and is relinquished within both home and community. Incisive, rigorous and artful, Isabelle Baafi reminds us of the importance of self-determination, and how, when we feel most eroded, we might discover what we need deep within ourselves: 'This time and every time, I was the code I needed to find my way back.''With sure formal dexterity and an exciting precision of lyrical imagining, Baafi explores the complicated pathways of suspicion and uncertainty, and - most vitally - the simultaneous possibilities of threat and beauty, mistrust and hope, darkness and joy. The knowing narrative detail is charged as strongly with ideas as with feeling, resulting in a highly original fusion of resistance and compassionate determination.' Jane Draycott'In this wise-hearted and deft debut, Baafi gets to the grain of family, inheritance, the grit of growing up and the grappling to become oneself.' Rachel Long'Isabelle Baafi's Chaotic Good is a debut of amazing endurance. Its formal pressures create a kind of kaleidoscopic intensity that - with each turn of the chamber - brings newly beautiful and painful shapes into focus.' Will Harris'Chaotic Good offers beautiful, urgent poems to remake our breaking world. From the playground all the way to the marriage bed, these redemption songs return to heal and emancipate.' alice hiller

An evocative journey of self-discovery and reclamation in the wake of divorceThis fresh, dynamic debut poetry book from award-winning poet Isabelle Baafi explores the transformative journey of redefining one's identity following trauma and upheaval. This conversational collection simmers with energy and immediacy as it interrogates how much our identity is determined by the circumstances into which we are born. The book's five sections travel backwards and forwards in time: asking urgent questions of self-knowledge and change during a marital breakdown, revisiting the formation of a moral compass during childhood, navigating the pitfalls of powerlessness and conformity during adolescence, charting the rise and fall of a passionate marriage, and seeking revitalisation in the wake of divorce. Visceral scenes from childhood and adolescence are set against deeply resonant moments of love blossoming and love dying to explore desire, power, and self-perception in unexpected ways. This exquisite and moving collection marks the emergence of a distinctive poetic voice. Sample Poem]The way you say penAfter Irene P. Mathieu's 'Soil'it sounds like pain, as inall I ever wanted was to live by my pain.If you want to raze a city, all you need is some paper and a good pain.You once said that a woman with a pain is like a gun who soon finds more targets than mercy.Every day I lost another pain, but you gave me another to take its place.A child starts out writing in pencil, but mastery is rewarded with a pain.Aged six, first trip without Dad, my legs the canvas: lightning scratched into me with my mother's pain.My shadow from the day I learned to skip with bloodied knees - she was my pain pal all this time.The pain is mightier than the sword, and twice as likely to punish its owner.What a luxury and a curse, to live and die by the torrent of my pain.Rainclouds surround the registry. Organza-veiled and blister-footed, I am yours with the flick of a pain.'Fill out in block capitals with black ink.' Some truths are only valid when the right pain tells them.

An evocative journey of self-discovery and reclamation in the wake of divorceThis fresh, dynamic debut poetry book from award-winning poet Isabelle Baafi explores the transformative journey of redefining one's identity following trauma and upheaval. This conversational collection simmers with energy and immediacy as it interrogates how much our identity is determined by the circumstances into which we are born. The book's five sections travel backwards and forwards in time: asking urgent questions of self-knowledge and change during a marital breakdown, revisiting the formation of a moral compass during childhood, navigating the pitfalls of powerlessness and conformity during adolescence, charting the rise and fall of a passionate marriage, and seeking revitalisation in the wake of divorce. Visceral scenes from childhood and adolescence are set against deeply resonant moments of love blossoming and love dying to explore desire, power, and self-perception in unexpected ways. This exquisite and moving collection marks the emergence of a distinctive poetic voice. Sample Poem]The way you say penAfter Irene P. Mathieu's 'Soil'it sounds like pain, as inall I ever wanted was to live by my pain.If you want to raze a city, all you need is some paper and a good pain.You once said that a woman with a pain is like a gun who soon finds more targets than mercy.Every day I lost another pain, but you gave me another to take its place.A child starts out writing in pencil, but mastery is rewarded with a pain.Aged six, first trip without Dad, my legs the canvas: lightning scratched into me with my mother's pain.My shadow from the day I learned to skip with bloodied knees - she was my pain pal all this time.The pain is mightier than the sword, and twice as likely to punish its owner.What a luxury and a curse, to live and die by the torrent of my pain.Rainclouds surround the registry. Organza-veiled and blister-footed, I am yours with the flick of a pain.'Fill out in block capitals with black ink.' Some truths are only valid when the right pain tells them.