A review by just_one_more_paige
The Moon That Turns You Back: Poems by Hala Alyan

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

 
I very rarely pick up poetry, as you know. But this one jumped out at me from the shelf because I have read another piece by the author, a novel, The Arsonists' City, and *loved* it. So I decided to give it a go. 
 
I've had a couple previous poetry collection reading experiences that have been really solid experiences for me, like it was never going to be okay, Lord of the Butterflies, Homie, If They Come for Us, among others, where I feel like I have "understood" the poems. For the most part anyways. Which is about the best I can usually hope for with poetry. But this collection is very firmly falling under the category of: I think I felt the right vibes/feelings, but didn't understand most of the individual pieces and probably only have a grasp of the larger sentiment due to the blurb on the back. Collections like this one are definitely full of, brimming even, with emotion. And yet, they also make me, as a reader, feel...wanting. Like I am not smart enough to "get" the messages and artwork of them. Maybe it's a practice thing, and if I read more, I'd "get" more. But as it is, I struggled at times with this collection. There was lots of play with structure that was intriguing, but most of it was opaque enough that I felt it contributed to my consideration of the collection being beyond my ability to interpret/understand. 
 
All that being said, I do want to share what I did get out of this. Again, these impressions may have been at least partially informed by the blurb on the back but, with that guidance, I definitely *felt* the "multiplicity" that was referenced. There was multiplicity of narrative style, body, countries/cities, homes, people/names (who they are and how we imagine or speak to/of them internally - both others and the author's self - collide against each other frequently), and more. And honestly, that is perhaps the most tangible thing I can say/understand about this collection. There is so much to balance, and that leaves the reader feeling unhinged/unmoored in a way that, in my interpretation, matches the author's own, in these circumstances she is writing about. 
 
Emotionally, there is so much sorrow here. There is sorrow for a lost child (lost children), lost homeland, lost homes, lost family members (both by distance/policy and by the permanence of death)...just so much loss. There is tragedy that is truly heavy on every page. As I finished the final poem, I asked myself, is there maybe some hope, here at the end? And I decided, a glimmer, maybe, like the sliver of moonlight from a crescent moon. But overally, really, this is a collection of the sadness of distance and loss. Even as I sometimes was detached while reading, due to missing comprehension on my part, I always felt that greater sorrow, that distance and loss, behind the words. 
 
A few of my favorite individual poems, for a variety of reasons, were: 
"Sleep Study No. 3" 
"Strike [Air]" 
"Love Poem" 
"The Uterus Speaks" and "The Amygdala Speaks" 
"Maternal" (the structure of this one, like the opposite of blackout poetry - whiteout poetry? - from medical record notes...oooooof, the feels) 
"Spoiler" (what a final poem!) 
 
 
“There is nothing more terrible / that waiting for the terrible. I promise. / Was the grief worth the poem? No, / but you don’t interrogate a weed / for what it does with wreckage. / For what it’s done to get here.” 
 
“unreturnable / one passport short of country / one country short of citizen” 
 
“I wake cold I bloom / empty” 
 
 “We’re both like this - full of risk and nowhere to put it.” 
 
“Every choice is the renunciation of another one.” 
 
“You’re not the only one who pretends to regret what they’ve wasted.” 
 
“Give me a date and I’ll lose it. Give me a border and I’ll run it crooked.” 
 
“the snow that thaws on sidewalks, that ache of gray, that wake of water.” 
 
“I still like my brain. This feels as / impossible as anything, but it’s true – I / feel its lure bright as a camera bulb / sometimes, the magic and the grief like / two rivers necking where they meet.” 
 
“The cost of wanting something is who you are / on the other side of getting it.” 
 
“I’m here to tell you the tide will never stop coming in. / I’m here to tell you whatever you build will be ruined, so make it beautiful.” 
 
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