AustLit

'‘Behind my eyes are the eyes of a horse looking out’. In this dynamic collection of prose poems, Misbah Khokar spins a bright new compass over fragmented, improvised worlds. Her poetry scopes the aftershocks of imperialism and voices wild new visions, bringing us to the territory behind the eyes. With what James Baldwin called ‘perception at the pitch of passion’, Khokhar's poems stun with their sudden intensities, their casual intimacies, their mapping of psychic expansions out of place. Their vocal resonance is emotionally protean—tones move swiftly from cool doom to playful grace—expressing the pleasures of observation and the strange consolations of unbelonging. —Lucy Van' (Publication summary)