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Harp in a Fireplace
ABOUT THE BOOK
Harp in a Fireplace is a song of sacrifice and a pledge to a home riddled with grief. Hussain Ahmed’s debut poetry chapbook collages childhood memories with painful moments from a world that pays less attention to the damage it does to itself. His unflinching poems are proof that scars will always remind the wounded of the past they want forgotten. Harp in a Fireplace affirms that reflecting and naming the pains is the first phase to end harm. It reminds us that healing is possible and how long it takes.
PRAISE
“‘I am sick of the nostalgia that comes with a stale memory,’ Hussain Ahmed writes, and ‘today, history is our enemy,’ in two separate poems where Wi-Fi features in the titles, in configurations as sobering as they are delightful. These modern and ancient juxtapositions are just one aspect of the relief I experienced reading Harp, a collection that brought ideas like ethos, faith, and soul back into my periphery.”
—Tarfia Faizullah, author of Seam and Registers of Illuminated Villages
"Hussain Ahmed’s language resonates with the precision and detail of an earnest artist. A fine blend of history, memory, and spirituality, poems in this volume wax heroic: approaching despair, distance and loss with the certitude of hope. The poet invokes nature in its fullness and precariousness as witness to survival—birds in flight, bodies and geographies out of the hold of old colonies, the ritual of music engraved on human skin. This is a majestic work of an important voice."
—Naza Amaeze Okoli, editor of African Writer Magazine
Harp in a Fireplace is a song of sacrifice and a pledge to a home riddled with grief. Hussain Ahmed’s debut poetry chapbook collages childhood memories with painful moments from a world that pays less attention to the damage it does to itself. His unflinching poems are proof that scars will always remind the wounded of the past they want forgotten. Harp in a Fireplace affirms that reflecting and naming the pains is the first phase to end harm. It reminds us that healing is possible and how long it takes.
PRAISE
“‘I am sick of the nostalgia that comes with a stale memory,’ Hussain Ahmed writes, and ‘today, history is our enemy,’ in two separate poems where Wi-Fi features in the titles, in configurations as sobering as they are delightful. These modern and ancient juxtapositions are just one aspect of the relief I experienced reading Harp, a collection that brought ideas like ethos, faith, and soul back into my periphery.”
—Tarfia Faizullah, author of Seam and Registers of Illuminated Villages
"Hussain Ahmed’s language resonates with the precision and detail of an earnest artist. A fine blend of history, memory, and spirituality, poems in this volume wax heroic: approaching despair, distance and loss with the certitude of hope. The poet invokes nature in its fullness and precariousness as witness to survival—birds in flight, bodies and geographies out of the hold of old colonies, the ritual of music engraved on human skin. This is a majestic work of an important voice."
—Naza Amaeze Okoli, editor of African Writer Magazine
36 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2021
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May 1, 2025I am thinking again about what it means to be a flower.
the world wants me to be edible. I won't.
i am not a particularly good reader of poetry and i felt locked out of most of these poems. lovely words, though, and lovely rhythm; just not for me, i think. my favorites were curfew and "satellite phone call to the boys in a faulty armored tank."
the world wants me to be edible. I won't.
i am not a particularly good reader of poetry and i felt locked out of most of these poems. lovely words, though, and lovely rhythm; just not for me, i think. my favorites were curfew and "satellite phone call to the boys in a faulty armored tank."
Displaying 1 of 1 review