A Constellation of Half Lives - by Seema Reza (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A Constellation of Half-Lives, a captivating collection of poems that beautifully navigates the challenges of living on a troubled planet while celebrating the sheer joy of love and life itself.

Seema Reza's poetry prowess shines through as she skillfully writes on the complexities of motherhood, daughterhood, and American identity in an era of conflict.

With careful precision, each verse is an exquisite masterpiece. Through thought-provoking second-person poems, Reza leaves the reader longing to discover the answers to life's most profound questions.

Review Quotes

"In reading Seema Reza's A Constellation of Half-Lives, I am at once gutted and seen and loved and broken and made whole. Offering unflinching self-examination, honest social critique, and careful exploration of war-driven trauma, these poems exalt the complicated beauty of humanness. Through this, miraculously, Reza grants us permission to be--just as we are: flawed and difficult and glorious. This book is a gift."
--Jeanann Verlee, author of Prey and Said the Manic to the Muse

"Seema Reza is an incandescent oracle, fighter, writer, and I cannot overstate the importance of her shining poems. She possesses the uncanny ability to sort love into violence and desire, triumph and loss, fear and comfort, and then set the elements blazing. She is the essential artist who knows to fight with each living breath, for justice and for love and for truth, and her determination transforms us. Read her."
--Susanna Sonnenberg, author of She Matters: A Life in Friendships

"Seema Reza's A Constellation of Half-Lives is one of the most astounding collections I've read. I can't remember being so caught, so identified, as if by a good friend who knows all my excuses. As the title suggests, the way Ms. Reza navigates the heart is truly celestial. The poems, like points in the sky, mark out all our heroism, beauty, and savage need. Love, she warns, can be graceless. Also, beauty assures us nothing but itself, and of joy she says, 'This is not the easy poem to write.' Yet, there is comfort here, and strength. Though the ground below is unsteady, and always remapping itself, here is where you want to be."
--Brendan Constantine, author of Birthday Girl with Possum