I Hope This Helps

Bashir (Field Theories) presents a multimedia experience that captures the fractured contemporary moment in dynamic poems of wit, clarity, rage, and sorrow. In her characteristic conversational tone, the poet explores the defiance of creative expression in a ruthlessly capitalist world and the apocalyptic flavor of 21st-century life. Her musings on mortality are especially moving: “I fear I feel/ I fear I’ve sunk too deep deep/ like neck-deep ya know?... I wonder how quickly through death’s door/ one laughs at absurd earthly cares.” The long poem “Letter from Exile” powerfully details Bashir’s experience in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which she traveled between Italy, New York, and Massachusetts. She draws connections between her appointment as the first Black Rome Prize fellow and the eruption of Black Lives Matter protests: “The thing about twenty-first century Negro Firsting(™) is that racism—the/ distraction of it as Morrison warned—is just so boring... Most days America screams to anyone who’ll listen how it hates me so much/ it would rather kill us all than let me live.” The collection’s multimedia elements (including photographs, large block text, sheet music, and etchings) amplify the stakes of the text. This stirring volume deserves a wide audience. (May)