Description
An exquisite collection from a poet at the peak of her powers, A God at the Door spans time and space, drawing on the extraordinary minutiae of nature and humanity to elevate the marginalised. These poems, taken together, traverse history, from the cosmic to the everyday. There is a playful spikiness to be found in poems like ‘Why the Brazilian Butt Lift Won’t Save Us’, while others, such as ‘I Found a Village and in it Were All Our Missing Women’, are fed by rage. As the collection unfolds, there are gem-like poems such as ‘I Carry My Uterus in a Small Suitcase’ which sparkles on the page with impeccable precision. Later, there are the sharp shocks delivered by two mirrored poems set side by side, ‘Microeconomics’ and ‘Macroeconomics’.
Tishani Doshi’s poetry bestows power on the powerless, deploys beauty to heal trauma, and enables the voices of the oppressed to be heard with piercing clarity. From flightless birds and witches, to black holes and Marilyn Monroe, A God at the Door illuminates with lines and images that surprise, inflame and dazzle.
‘The poems of Tishani Doshi’s A God at the Door operate on the grand scale, reaching for visionary responses to their often troubling subjects. They etch articulate outrage deftly on to ecological backdrops… everywhere these poems are caustic and comic in turn, “unbelted, unbuttoned”, shimmering and bright. Though “hope is a booby trap” in the war-ravaged landscapes, it is nevertheless offered up and renewed throughout this stunning and ambitious collection.’ – Aingeal Clare, The Guardian
‘May we always have the music and elegant fury of Tishani Doshi’s poetry.’ – Fatima Bhutto
‘The witty, wise and clear-eyed novelist, dancer and poet deploys both rage and sharp analysis covering issues from the precarious state of the environment to the treatment of women.’ – The Guardian (Books to look forward to in 2021) on A God at the Door
‘A God at the Door is eloquent on a list of necessary and pressing topics everyone in society has a stake in: feminism, issues of class, poverty, faith, love, science, disease, war, and of course the current coronapocalypse. Each of the six sections embraces monumental themes that can be read as both a wakeup call to life and a firm hug that says not to be afraid, ‘living is a thing we do together’. – Mhari Aitchison, DURA (Dundee University Review of the Arts)
From the reviews of Tishani Doshi’s Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods:
‘This intelligent, elegant, unflinching collection. It’s very much a collection for this moment in history, but one that will endure long past it.’ – Kamila Shamsie, The Guardian (Best Summer Reads)
‘The title poem is a haunting vision of retribution… Doshi’s poem is exceptionally timely, although it was written before the rise of the #MeToo movement. It’s impossible not to cheer the boldness and liberation enacted by much of this book, and to be stirred by its bravery. To paraphrase one interviewer, Doshi is writing the anthems of her generation.’ – Sandeep Parmar, The Guardian
‘The poet revels in a love of language; its capacity for ambiguity, for awe, to express emotional fragility. Sometimes playful and ambivalent, this is an invariably profound and excavating experience in its search for meaning.’ – Linton Kwesi Johnson, Canon Mark Oakley and Clare Shaw, Judges of the Ted Hughes Award 2018
‘I love the opulent poetry of Tishani Doshi.’ – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, New York Times
