Call Me Home
Poems
- Publisher
- Central Avenue Publishing
- Initial publish date
- Feb 2025
- Category
- Asian American, Women Authors, Death, NON-CLASSIFIABLE, Family
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781771683999
- Publish Date
- Feb 2025
- List Price
- $22.00
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781771684002
- Publish Date
- Feb 2025
- List Price
- $9.99 USD
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Description
A powerful exploration of the diverse manifestations of “home”, extending beyond its mere physicality, through topics such as womanhood, spirituality, and immigration.
Explore the multifaceted concept of "home" through Kaur's evocative poetry. Journey beyond its physical confines to discover its emotional and psychological depths, touching on themes like immigration, womanhood, and spirituality.
Encounter narratives of loss, rediscovery, and healing that resonate with the human experience. With rich language and imagery, this collection offers fresh perspectives, inviting readers to reconsider their understanding of what it means to feel at home.
About the author
Harman Kaur, a Panjabi Sikh poet and writer born and raised in British Columbia, Canada, now calls the Bay Area, California, home. Through powerful words, she fearlessly explores the intricate layers of her identity, exemplified in her collections, Phulkari and Call Me Home.
Excerpt: Call Me Home: Poems (by (author) Harman Kaur)
Intergenerational Pain
I learned silence from my father;
this is the only way he was ever allowed to grieve
I inherited my mother’s rage;
this is the only way she was ever heard
Numb
There is no doubt about it:
It is easier to think of anything but the grief,
to drift in a constant state of numbness.
The cuts keep coming, but I no longer feel them.
I wear my scars like badges, battle-worn,
yet, truth be told,
I do not remember when they formed—or how.
The anesthesia will fade, eventually,
but healing means confronting the pain.
And who wants to walk down the street,
only to come face to face with their mistakes?
The eclipse
If I told you
about the darkness
inside me,
would you still look at me
like I am the Sun?
Chekhov’s Gun
In another lifetime,
I learn not to carry the hurt
like a loaded gun.
In another lifetime,
you are bulletproof.
The Imagined Woman
The men—
they want a good woman, modest,
wrapped from head to toe,
like a secret not to be revealed.
Yet the men—
they like to imagine,
with lustful paintbrushes
and hungry eyes.
Her body becomes their canvas,
where they paint picture after picture
The men—
they do not know her secret,
but they are left satisfied,
all the same.
I Cry On My Birthday
It is October, again
and I get hit with a sense of melancholy,
as I ponder another round around the sun,
with nothing to show for it
Nothing has changed and
I desperately wanted things to be different by now
It has been a long year
I try not to think about the way that time evades me
The days, they have dragged on, but they also
slip through my fingertips
I can’t remember what I did three days ago,
but it was probably nothing important
I want to say that this year has not been kind to me,
but I know it is useless to complain
I am alive, after all
Sometimes, that is a comforting thought
Other times, not so much
Another year has passed me by
I am alive That is all
The Haunting
One night, all the ghosts of my past appeared,
filling me with longing for what I had given up on
(for what had given up on me).
In a trance, I followed them,
my grip on reality loosening,
the weight of everything I had ever lost
lifting away.
I let myself linger there awhile,
amid loose ends and "what ifs."
I saw the bridges I had burned,
and there you stood—just as I remembered you.
I wanted to ask why you left,
but I knew if I stayed too long,
I might become a spirit myself.
What haunts me now is this:
Am I your ghost, too?
Or was I never even worth keeping as a memory?