Another Way to Split Water by Alycia Pirmohamed

Alycia Pirmohamed's new poetry collection is a fluid exploration of ancestry, change and memory

Review by Heather McDaid | 29 Aug 2022
  • Another Way to Split Water

Much like the substance at the heart of the collection’s title, Alycia Pirmohamed’s Another Way to Split Water is fluid, flowing through settings, explorations, emotions and questions with an ease that lures the reader to dive in without hesitation.

A meditation on how ancestry reforms and transforms throughout generations, the collection is itself an act of creation and recreation, acknowledging change over time: ‘Origins are also small memories / and there is an ethics to remembering’ … ‘So, I rinse in a bath of citations, feeling as human as the rest of them’ … ‘I am doubled. This language doubles me.’

From small town nights of Nights / Flatline, to exploring the two hearts of the Arabic and English language in On My Tongue, and family ('every poem filled with the shade of you') through Ode to My Mother’s Hair, the collection reflects on ideas of belonging, faith and more, offering intimate insight and ponderings of bigger questions through the vivid landscapes that lay backdrop. Memory is explored – sometimes with the heft of the past, others with regret – each with a tenderness and care.

Pirmohamed’s achievements speak for themselves, including winning the CBC Poetry Prize and the acclaimed Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, and each poem is crafted, each word perfectly placed, flowing into one another. Dreamlike, brimming with ideas, it’s a collection that engulfs you, invites you to read more, to discover new jewels on each read.


Polygon, 1 Sep
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