Bad Diaspora Poems by Momtaza Mehri (Jonathan Cape, £14.99)
The long-awaited debut collection from the former Young People’s Poet Laureate for London invites readers to consider the concept of diaspora. Mehri brings unflinching discursive skills to verse that melds criticism, autobiography and essay while still achieving a crisp sonic momentum characteristic of lyric poetry. The meanings of diaspora in this collection are as varied as the forms Mehri deploys: prose poems, found poems, poems using emojis and erasures. “Diaspora is witnessing a murder without getting blood on your shirt.” “I don’t want to guard something I don’t own.” Mehri finds a new tone somewhere between Gwendolyn Brooks’s effortless musicality and Carolyn Forché’s noun-laced haunting intensity. Hers is a dazzling voice that refuses to speak from a podium, preferring to examine guilt, culture and personhood from within the “nightly decision” of community.
