Tarfia Faizullah

Here, within these collected zines, you’ll find enough spotted ponies to fill at least three large stables to the brim. Although, of course, you wouldn’t have much luck coaxing them in there. No, instead, it’s likely because of the free rein they’ve been given, because they’ve been cut loose, that so many spotted ponies seem to have chosen these poems as their breeding ground. We’ve never offered them much scrutiny; never subjected them to any polishing or meticulous adjustments. Each of our spotted ponies simply exists in its natural state, as a product of our own wild abandon.

The poems in this captivating collection weave beauty with violence, the personal with the historic as they recount the harrowing experiences of the two hundred thousand female victims of rape and torture at the hands of the Pakistani army during the 1971 Liberation War. As the child of Bangladeshi immigrants, the poet in turn explores her own losses, as well as the complexities of bearing witness to the atrocities these war heroines endured.Throughout the volume, the narrator endeavours to bridge generational and cultural gaps even as the victims recount the horror of grief and personal loss. As we read, we discover the profound yet fragile seam that unites the fields, rivers, and prisons of the 1971 war with the poet’s modern-day hotel, or the tragic death of a loved one with the holocaust of a nation.Moving from West Texas to Dubai, from Virginia to remote villages in Bangladesh and back again, the narrator calls on the legacies of Willa Cather, César Vallejo, Tomas Tranströmer, and Paul Celan to give voice to the voiceless. Fierce yet loving, devastating and magical at once, Seam is a testament to the lingering potency of memory and the bravery of a nation’s victims.