{"product_id":"letters-to-my-younger-self-9781736782064","title":"Letters to My Younger Self","description":"Where do you end and I begin?\" is the question which haunts Shaheen Dil's remarkable memoir-in-poems. Addressed to Choiti, her younger self, Dil's poems shepherd us from Old Dhaka-a childhood stitched from blue silk garara, mango trees, rikshaws, and the love of her Ammu and Abbu-to Chicago and then Ann Arbor, where \"a new world thrust[s]\" her into days of forgotten Bengali, the joy of Twinkies, and stone quarries. \"You didn't know that you were an immigrant,\" Dil tells herself in revelation after revelation, her parents' divorce sweeping her back to Nazimuddin Road, then Lahore, Queen Mary's College, parathas and pomegranate chutney sweetening 117 degree days. In the way of Whitman, Dil discovers that she \"contain[s] multitudes\" as America beckons again-Bloomington, Columbia, Poughkeepsie, Boston, an ever-revolving door of places, experiences, and selves made new. I am reminded of Gaston Bachelard's words in \u003ci\u003eThe Poetics of Space\u003c\/i\u003e: \"Immensity is within ourselves.\" Dil's journey is at once powerful and circular, transformative and tender. These wonderful poems leave me breathless, ecstatic, eager to seek out the selves which made me. They leave me yearning to ask the Choiti still lingering in all of us: \"Where might I end and you begin again?\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eSara Henning\u003c\/b\u003e is the award-winning author of the poetry collections\u003ci\u003e Burn \u003c\/i\u003e(Southern Illinois University Press, 2024), \u003ci\u003eTerra Incognita\u003c\/i\u003e (Ohio University Press, 2022), and \u003ci\u003eView from True North\u003c\/i\u003e (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018). She teaches at Marshall University, where she coordinates the A.E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn her third collection of poems since 2016, Dil weaves a dialogic narrative with herself that reaches across the distances of time and place to create a tapestry of pleasurable and painful memories. As \u003ci\u003eShaheen\u003c\/i\u003e recalls and addresses \u003ci\u003eChoiti\u003c\/i\u003e in each of these testamentary poems, we can feel the uncanny power of the lyrical word to retrieve and reconstitute formative moments from the speaker's living past in the imagination. And gradually but assuredly, as we follow the chronology of this collection, we find ourselves asking: who is I here and who is you. Ultimately, Dil's collection of recollection returns otherwise private moments from her past to a future in \u003ci\u003epoeisis\u003c\/i\u003e, where much like the universal experience of the \"uncanny,\" the poet brings to light what by its nature is mysterious and secret. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe Bulgarian poet \u003cb\u003eLyubomir Nikolov\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of numerous books, translated into seven languages. He received the National Southern Spring Award in 1982 and the Third Annual Settlement House American Poetry Prize in 2016. His latest book is \u003ci\u003eThe Wine's Angel\u003c\/i\u003e (Fakel Press 2018). \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eShaheen Dil\u003c\/b\u003e is a reformed academic, banker and consultant who now devotes herself to poetry. She was born in Bangladesh, and lives in Pittsburgh. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. Her poem \"River at Night\" was a winning poem in the Passager 2021 Poetry Contest. Her poem \"The Red Thread\" was nominated for a pushcart prize. Dil has published two books of poetry, \u003ci\u003eActs of Deference\u003c\/i\u003e (Fakel 2016) and \u003ci\u003eThe Boat-maker's Art \u003c\/i\u003e(Kelsay Books 2024.) Dil is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, the DVP\/US1 Poets, and the Porch Poets. She holds a BA from Vassar College, a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. Additional information is available on her website: shaheendil.com\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Gyroscope Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52057756008722,"sku":"9781736782064","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_4c04f71c-211a-475d-b717-66967e710520.jpg?v=1772005178","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/letters-to-my-younger-self-9781736782064","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}