High Noon and the Body

Poems by Kyla Pasha
Review by Udayan

Kyla Pasha’s book of poetry is an astonishing piece of work coming out of radical feminist Pakistan. This radicalism, the seething anger, the tender love is brimming in every verse of this brilliant composition.

Breaking the clichés of South Asian “women’s poetry”, Kyla’s poems emerge from a maze of words, bathed in longing and desire, adorned with the sadness of a broken heart, burning with flames of revenge and ever-reminiscent of the sweetness of hopeful love.

In ‘Marauder’ she tells of an approaching savagery; ‘Post it Notes on your door’ beautifully talks of a love gained and lost; ‘High Noon and the Body’ speaks of the struggles and strife of female gender non-conformity.

One of my favourites was ‘The Lullaby for Grieving’. I loved it for its exuberance of pain, the breathlessness of words, and its pregnancy with meaning.

“But it plays ill to still a dance
And I have only an older woman’s
Romance with martyrdom in breath…”

Reading this 83 page book of poems, one feels an association with the tangibility disseminated, a life unwound and a rebel unleashed.