Often, Ahmed presents us with the opposite of “Dhaka Dust”: the American poem in which the speaker’s otherness is underscored. Opposed to the hyperactivity of Dhaka, there is “Southeastern Ohio,” in which the speaker reflects upon her cultural hybridity in the U.S. In this particular piece, she is a child reciting prayers by rote until the poem takes an unexpected turn:

Ahmed’s humor and warmth make the experience of reading the poem satisfying. The dissonance of reading George Michael’s lyrics juxtaposed with Islamic prayer is pleasurable because in a setting of makeshift houses of prayer, it feels honest, real, allowing the reader to connect with the subject of the poem.

Another way in which this plurality is manifested in this collection is through the use of foreign language. Naturally, many of the phrases come from Bengali and are part of the speaker’s tie with her ethnicity — phrases that appear, for example, in the aforementioned “Dhaka Dust.” Language, though, serves to underscore the speaker’s plurality, judging by the frequency with which she uses those other than English. Italicizing the foreign phrases emphasizes their otherness and their quality as objects, items apart from the rest of the narrative, particularly in a time when many poets are choosing to forego the convention of italicizing foreign language, allowing the other languages to more greatly commingle with English. The reader encounters Italian words in Italy and French in Belgium, but Spanish appears apropos of nothing in the seventh couplet of “Ghazal”: “Me encanta cantar, cuando estoy sola, en el carro. / My mother tongue dissolves. I speak in another” (p. 39). Though the ghazal is by nature disjunctive, the Spanish phrase (“I love to sing when I’m alone in the car,” in an approximate translation) is truly surprising and refreshing in its oddness and simplicity. In the overall volume, such instances gain resonance when coupled with the Bengali phrases. They emphasize the plural experience of our culture by placing the speaker’s multilingual experience in context with others.

Choosing these instances for discussion feels reductive in a collection that addresses multiple aspects of our American and global culture in many different ways. Ahmed’s great talent for description — what Asian-American poet Arthur Sze calls “sensuous” in his introduction — is original and emotionally engaging. Ahmed holds place before her like a mirror in this strong first collection, always glimpsing a different self.