Paisley by Rakhshan Rizwan

Paisley by Rakhshan Rizwan

The poems in this pamphlet examine the vexed issues of class, linguistic and cultural identity, especially female identity, in the context of Pakistan, and in the broader context of South Asia.

"A striking debut collection which evokes the rich culture and history of Rizwan’s native LahoreThemes of belonging, migration and displacement abound, as Rizwan examines the split linguistic self of the migrant: “My voice is the mirror that breaks in Urdu”. The patterns of her homeland are ever-present: “in a new country, let us dream of different paisleys”. Combining free verse and complex ghazals, this is a powerful exploration of the role of women in Pakistan and beyond." - Poetry Book Society, Winter Bulletin 2017

-- Poetry Book Society

"The collection as a whole, however, is a serious instigator of thought. It will certainly appeal to a Western audience so that they can see what integration means to those that that they want to integrate and what kinds of things their ethnic minority brothers and sisters from the Sub-Continent are experiencing and thinking about." Suneel Mehmi, Contemporary Small Press

* Contemporary Small Press *

"...this young poet is not afraid to do her own bit of undigging. In her title poem, she uses a ghazal form in which every couplet rhymes ‘paisley’ with ‘paisley’. The word is repeated so many times that all shreds of former association disappear in a furious blizzard of repetition. There is fierce energy here, and uncompromising intensity. I see the paisley symbol for the first time in my life. "

* Sphinx Reviews *

The physical shape (and taste) of language, as well as its abstract resonances, takes on a new significance. This is seen perhaps most clearly in Rizwan’s assured use of the ghazal in poems such as ‘Urdu/ Hindi’ and ‘Speech Therapy’, where the form lends itself particularly well to Paisley’s overarching dialectic.

-- Phoebe Walker * Sabotage Reviews *

Rakhshan Rizwan works as an Acquisitions Editor. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Utrecht University. Her poetry pamphlet, Paisley (The Emma Press, 2017) was shortlisted for the Saboteur Award and the Michael Marks Poetry Prize. Her collection of children’s poetry, My Sneezes are Perfect (The Emma Press, 2021) documents the difficulties of moving countries, and living through a pandemic from the perspective of a young child. Her book Kashmiri Life Narratives: Human Rights, Pleasure, and the Local Cosmopolitan (Routledge, 2020) looks at how Kashmiri authors use innovative languages of happiness to do human rights advocacy. Her writing has appeared in Aaduna, Nimrod, Postcolonial Text and Blue Lyra Review, among others. She is on the editorial team of the children’s poetry journal Tyger Tyger Magazine. She is from Lahore, Pakistan, has lived in Germany and the Netherlands, and currently lives in the Bay Area of North California, US. Rachel Piercey is a poet and editor who also writes for children. Her poems have appeared in magazines including Magma, The Rialto, Poems In Which, Butcher’s Dog and The Poetry Review and she has two pamphlets with the Emma Press, The Flower and the Plough and Rivers Wanted. https://www.rachelpierceypoet.com/

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781910139783
ISBN 10	1910139785
Title	Paisley
Author	Rakhshan Rizwan
Series	The Emma Press Poetry Pamphlets
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The Emma Press
Year published	2017-09-28
Number of pages	36
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.