Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?

Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? weaves a mystery about a mystery-the yearning and its fulfillment (or not) of any lived life. Here, it's the life of a woman whose exquisite artist's sensibility enables her to escape a repressive paternalistic tradition. "It took me a while / to wake up from / a life not lived" she says in "Or Did You Think I'd Never Find The Way Out?" As mercurial as life, the titles of these accomplished pantoums, free verse, and prose poems all begin with that elusory and disjunctive "or," and most are interrogatory, asking but not answering the big questions. They cast the subtle fabric of human aspiration against reality's loom, making art that holds it all. "I am drawing a keyhole / to find my way / out of my own cell," the speaker says. Reading that, and this moving book, puts a pen-and a keyhole-into the hand of the reader, as well. -Rebecca Foust

• | Author: Hedy Habra
• | Publisher: Press 53
• | Publication Date: Oct 10, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 108 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1950413691
• | ISBN-13: 9781950413690