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Your Wound, My Garden
When we don’t process the pain, where does it go? What is the purpose of being alive when there’s so much suffering? What does it mean to live and die with dignity in a world utterly opposed to it?
Your Wound / My Garden (2021) is the new poetry collection by ALOK written during COVID 19 lockdown. It's an argument for beauty in the face of grief, loss, and chronic pain.
Your Wound / My Garden (2021) is the new poetry collection by ALOK written during COVID 19 lockdown. It's an argument for beauty in the face of grief, loss, and chronic pain.
52 pages, Paperback
Published November 25, 2021
48 people are currently reading
3181 people want to read
About the author
Alok Vaid-Menon
13 books21.7k followersAlok is a writer and performance artist. They are the author of Femme in Public (2017), Beyond the Gender Binary (2020), and Your Wound / My Garden (2021). Learn more at www.alokvmenon.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
December 7, 2021
I would rate this higher if I could. I finished this collection feeling changed. I felt profoundly moved and seen and seeing. Some experiences felt like they wrote a poem out of my own feelings, while others I can not possibly have known, but their words wrapped me in that situation so tightly I couldnt help but feel for them (feel with them?). I know this is what poetry does and I feel this with so much poetry, but this collection left me feeling even more. I don't know how to properly articulate it. This is a very short collection, but every poem is so powerful, it makes sense exactly as it is. This hits on gender, disability, greiving, several are even about COVID, and SO many are about love (loving friends, loving strangers, loving yourself -- how sometimes these can all be the same).
December 14, 2021
Another incredible incredible incredible read. Short and thought-provoking. Best read out loud.
Everyone, do yourselves a favour and buy it.
Everyone, do yourselves a favour and buy it.
October 28, 2022
After helping out at their event in Bonn, Alok signed this book for me and I loved it. Alok has this vibrant, raw, exuberant energy and an absolutely wonderful way with words. Reading about the pandemic, about death, about loving yourself is just absolutely rewarding. Just go ahead and read it!
December 4, 2021
Alok is just pure magic.
December 10, 2024
How devastating. How gorgeous.
This collection deserves all the stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This collection deserves all the stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
April 8, 2023
2023 review:
Alok's ability to speak about pain, grief, trauma, and being present and vulnerable in our bodies continues to change me, even when I reread their work.
2022 review:
In the signed copy I got they wrote,
“Love + Need You! ❤️ Alok.”
The world needs more people listening to the voice of Alok Vaid-Menon.
Alok's ability to speak about pain, grief, trauma, and being present and vulnerable in our bodies continues to change me, even when I reread their work.
2022 review:
In the signed copy I got they wrote,
“Love + Need You! ❤️ Alok.”
The world needs more people listening to the voice of Alok Vaid-Menon.
September 24, 2025
Personal, raw and full of layers i definitely like this poetry book of Alok.
November 10, 2025
wow what a masterpiece.
Emotional, ehrlich, offen und unverblümt. Es geht um Schmerz, um Rassismus, Sprache, Identität und sich selber kennen und lieben zu lernen. Riesige Empfehlung
Emotional, ehrlich, offen und unverblümt. Es geht um Schmerz, um Rassismus, Sprache, Identität und sich selber kennen und lieben zu lernen. Riesige Empfehlung
January 23, 2022
I don't read a lot of poetry. Mainly, I have so much to read as it is that I never think to make room for something out of my wheelhouse. But when I do, it's usually because the author seemed so interesting I had to read their poetry
That's the case here, but while I expected Alok's poetry to be very good, I wasn't ready for how profound their words are. I'd read just a few each night and then needed to process.
The one that hit me the hardest was "dying is the longest verb i know." I had a very similar experience with my own grandfather's death. It's a beautiful poem, but I definitely had to sit and decompress afterwards.
That's the case here, but while I expected Alok's poetry to be very good, I wasn't ready for how profound their words are. I'd read just a few each night and then needed to process.
The one that hit me the hardest was "dying is the longest verb i know." I had a very similar experience with my own grandfather's death. It's a beautiful poem, but I definitely had to sit and decompress afterwards.
January 16, 2022
"beneath every supremacy lives insecurity
each insult is an invitation to quicksand and
i refuse to take the bite.
it is not my responsibility to rescue you from your self-
imposed quarantine from humanity.
you don’t know who you are without me.
i know who i am without you.
(this is why you hate me.)
(this is why i love you.)
your wound is my garden,
i have found life here in the places you have left for dead.
watch me bloom."
each insult is an invitation to quicksand and
i refuse to take the bite.
it is not my responsibility to rescue you from your self-
imposed quarantine from humanity.
you don’t know who you are without me.
i know who i am without you.
(this is why you hate me.)
(this is why i love you.)
your wound is my garden,
i have found life here in the places you have left for dead.
watch me bloom."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 27, 2022
Forever grateful for Alok and their words. 🧡😭
They are integrity and love in action.
A living embodiment of their words “Make hope contagious” 🧡
They are integrity and love in action.
A living embodiment of their words “Make hope contagious” 🧡
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 1, 2023
Authenticity is an orientation, not a destination. Live many lives, each one as true as the last.
August 23, 2023
So much death.
January 14, 2022
I have never read a collection of poetry where I have paused and cried at every poem, where I have clutched at my chest to feel the beating of my heart because of the powerful resonance of what is written. Until now. I will be re-reading time and again.
January 30, 2024
4.75*
alok is my favourite poet. their words and presence inspire me. i think of them often and how they have changed my life since july 2021.
"my deepest breath" made me put the book down and silently cry for a minute.
alok is my favourite poet. their words and presence inspire me. i think of them often and how they have changed my life since july 2021.
"my deepest breath" made me put the book down and silently cry for a minute.
August 23, 2022
Words fail me. Would give this a thousand stars if I could. Alok is brilliant. This collection is beautiful and heart breaking and timely and eternal. What a gift!
December 12, 2021
„It’s not just about who can speak, but who gets to speak.
He who controls the word controls the world.“ (16)
„Can we use the same tongue to mourn, when they use it to murder?“ (31)
It somehow feels wrong to describe the book as a work of exceptional beauty when there’s so much pain in it, yet there is no other word that would summarize it in such a universal way while also reviving the versatility of the word itself. Alok, you did it again!
He who controls the word controls the world.“ (16)
„Can we use the same tongue to mourn, when they use it to murder?“ (31)
It somehow feels wrong to describe the book as a work of exceptional beauty when there’s so much pain in it, yet there is no other word that would summarize it in such a universal way while also reviving the versatility of the word itself. Alok, you did it again!
December 10, 2021
Perfection.
February 11, 2023
Powerful words and a necessary narrative for everyone to read. I loved the breadth of this. The Self, the pandemic, ancestors, family, grief, life, death, immigration, trauma, beauty, politics. Optimism. So much hope. You are a tremendous beauty. This is what I leave the book with. Love.
April 11, 2023
Beautiful poetry ❤️🔥
April 7, 2022
I believe Alok is one of the most important thinkers of this time, and this was a beautiful and thought provoking collection. Poems at the beginning were stronger than the end
April 24, 2022
A wonderful collection of poetry.
Alok's way with words always blows my mind. These poems are no exception.
Alok's way with words always blows my mind. These poems are no exception.
June 5, 2022
This book is revelation, evolution, revolution, perfection. ALOK is a treasure.
October 2, 2023
There is something within these poems that reminds me how humane we are. How our emotions are intertwined. How beautiful it is to just be. How our shared pains are something that is beautiful.
July 5, 2024
I wish this never ended. So, so stunning.
December 31, 2021
Tää oli ihana ja upee niin kuin oletinkin.
January 2, 2022
Topline review: READ THIS BOOK ASAP!
I have been on the edge of my seat waiting for Alok Vaid-Menon to publish more poetry since their 2017 debut, Femme in Public. That chapbook fundamentally changed the way that I see — and move through — the world. This collection reveals new dimensions to the same courage, perception, defiance, and deep care that first drew me to Alok. It is a beautiful, beautiful collection. You cannot read it and be unmoved.
The collection as a whole straddles the “before and after” divide of the COVID-19 pandemic, some written before it began, and others noted to have been written after. But in the arrangement of the poems, Alok — a master of challenging binaries — seems perhaps to challenge whether the experiences of the pandemic can be so cleanly delineated into a “before and after” framework. Are we really to believe that people weren’t already lonely before being trapped indoors? Were we not beset by countless other epidemics (violence against trans and non-binary people, for instance) back when things were deemed “comfortable” and “normal”? Are we not still laden with griefs that precede the stasis induced by the pandemic? The poems question and probe this line and range in tone from mourning to euphoria, from ridicule to self-regard. The collection picked up steam as it went, with the home stretch packing in a crescendo of particularly magnificent poems.
Some poems were especially powerful standouts. The final quartet — “impossible lives,” “your wound is my garden,” “our tremendous beauty,” and “care is our natural state” — simultaneously brought me to tears AND had me exclaiming aloud in affirmation. I read these final four poems so many times; read together, they feel almost imbued with the properties of a map. They are revealing, instructive, orienting. Absolutely flawless work that is a gift to read, and to which I will frequently return. Another highlight: the twin poems “a new unit of measure” and “bilingual.” Should there someday be an anthology of poems about the COVID-19 pandemic (and there someday will be such an anthology), these two are absolutely essential contributions. They are some of the first poetry produced during the pandemic that I have read thinking “yes, exactly this, remember this.” Finally, I have to lift up Alok’s poem about the death of their beloved grandfather, “dying is the longest verb i know.” It is an exquisite, wrenching memorial — one of the best descriptions of loss that I have ever read. Reading it for the first time was such a tender gift; in the way that it pins down a momentous experience with small details, it instantly reminded me of my own losses. To me, reading it stands beside my first time reading Tracy K. Smith’s masterpiece poem about her father’s passing, “The Speed of Belief,” from her collection Life on Mars. And I assure you, I have no higher poetic praise to give than that. I never even expected to be able to make that kind of a comparison with another poem.
I’m winding down my review, but of course, no review of this book is complete without engaging with the STYLE! When I tell you about the absolute LOOKS served alongside these poems! The book is laced with stunning glamour shots of Alok. And this, of course, is central to Alok’s creative work: celebrating, loving, esteeming, making sacred the ever-evolving beauty that others would (and have tried and failed to) trample. It’s hard to choose a favorite, but mine are the cover photo, the diptych in the garden on page 48, and the departing portrait on page 51. Just stunning, and so in communion with the power of the poetry.
Vaid-Menon is a visionary and a waymaker. A genius. I sincerely believe they are one of the most important artists working in any medium today. Am I gushing? Yes! And it is warranted. Alok is one of the artists and thinkers of my life, and it is such a treasure to sit with this new material at a time when I needed it. It’s January 2 as I am writing this, and I already know that it will be one of the most important books I read all year. Y’all ought to pick up a copy and read it for yourself as soon as you can.
I have been on the edge of my seat waiting for Alok Vaid-Menon to publish more poetry since their 2017 debut, Femme in Public. That chapbook fundamentally changed the way that I see — and move through — the world. This collection reveals new dimensions to the same courage, perception, defiance, and deep care that first drew me to Alok. It is a beautiful, beautiful collection. You cannot read it and be unmoved.
The collection as a whole straddles the “before and after” divide of the COVID-19 pandemic, some written before it began, and others noted to have been written after. But in the arrangement of the poems, Alok — a master of challenging binaries — seems perhaps to challenge whether the experiences of the pandemic can be so cleanly delineated into a “before and after” framework. Are we really to believe that people weren’t already lonely before being trapped indoors? Were we not beset by countless other epidemics (violence against trans and non-binary people, for instance) back when things were deemed “comfortable” and “normal”? Are we not still laden with griefs that precede the stasis induced by the pandemic? The poems question and probe this line and range in tone from mourning to euphoria, from ridicule to self-regard. The collection picked up steam as it went, with the home stretch packing in a crescendo of particularly magnificent poems.
Some poems were especially powerful standouts. The final quartet — “impossible lives,” “your wound is my garden,” “our tremendous beauty,” and “care is our natural state” — simultaneously brought me to tears AND had me exclaiming aloud in affirmation. I read these final four poems so many times; read together, they feel almost imbued with the properties of a map. They are revealing, instructive, orienting. Absolutely flawless work that is a gift to read, and to which I will frequently return. Another highlight: the twin poems “a new unit of measure” and “bilingual.” Should there someday be an anthology of poems about the COVID-19 pandemic (and there someday will be such an anthology), these two are absolutely essential contributions. They are some of the first poetry produced during the pandemic that I have read thinking “yes, exactly this, remember this.” Finally, I have to lift up Alok’s poem about the death of their beloved grandfather, “dying is the longest verb i know.” It is an exquisite, wrenching memorial — one of the best descriptions of loss that I have ever read. Reading it for the first time was such a tender gift; in the way that it pins down a momentous experience with small details, it instantly reminded me of my own losses. To me, reading it stands beside my first time reading Tracy K. Smith’s masterpiece poem about her father’s passing, “The Speed of Belief,” from her collection Life on Mars. And I assure you, I have no higher poetic praise to give than that. I never even expected to be able to make that kind of a comparison with another poem.
I’m winding down my review, but of course, no review of this book is complete without engaging with the STYLE! When I tell you about the absolute LOOKS served alongside these poems! The book is laced with stunning glamour shots of Alok. And this, of course, is central to Alok’s creative work: celebrating, loving, esteeming, making sacred the ever-evolving beauty that others would (and have tried and failed to) trample. It’s hard to choose a favorite, but mine are the cover photo, the diptych in the garden on page 48, and the departing portrait on page 51. Just stunning, and so in communion with the power of the poetry.
Vaid-Menon is a visionary and a waymaker. A genius. I sincerely believe they are one of the most important artists working in any medium today. Am I gushing? Yes! And it is warranted. Alok is one of the artists and thinkers of my life, and it is such a treasure to sit with this new material at a time when I needed it. It’s January 2 as I am writing this, and I already know that it will be one of the most important books I read all year. Y’all ought to pick up a copy and read it for yourself as soon as you can.
May 26, 2022
Gorgeous. And heartbreaking. Alok is such a gift to this world. Thank you Kelsey 💜
January 22, 2022
I have long loved Alok’s work, from their words, to their art, to their Goodreads recommendations. This collection of poetry is a gift; spectacular. Alok writes of the devastation, confusion, compassion, and hope of the trans experience and the current pandemic in a way that is cathartic and graceful. I needed these words so much right now, and am so grateful for Alok and how freely they share their beauty with us. The portraits of Alok in this book compliment the poetry wonderfully, and hold a similar power. This book is a gorgeous, breathtaking experience.
February 13, 2022
Glad I took the time to read this in two sittings; stopped at their section written at the time of the pandemic.
This felt like two separate collections wrapped up into the timeline of a global and personal grief for Alok and the reader. I deeply resonated with many of these poems, and continue to fall in love time and time again with the way they stylize and craft words.
This felt like two separate collections wrapped up into the timeline of a global and personal grief for Alok and the reader. I deeply resonated with many of these poems, and continue to fall in love time and time again with the way they stylize and craft words.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews