Today it's a pleasure to take part on the Blogtour Love Like Blood by Sascha Aurora Akhtar.
Sascha Aurora Akhtar feels deeply connected to her ancestral roots in Lancashire, South Yorkshire and Pakistan.
Her first poetry collection was The Grimoire of Grimalkin (Salt, 2007), followed by 199 Japanese Names for Japanese Trees (Shearsman, 2016) & the first of its kind a deck of Poetry cards with fine art Only Dying Sparkles (ZimZalla 2018). In 2019, she has published The Whimsy Of Dank Ju-Ju (Emma Press 2019) & #LoveLikeBlood (Knives, Forks & Spoons Press 2019).
Her fiction has appeared in BlazeVox, Tears In The Fence, The Learned Pig, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Storgy. Sascha has performed internationally at festivals such as the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam, Avantgarde Festival in Hamburg, and Southbank Centre’s Meltdown festival in London, curated by Yoko Ono.
Follow @AkhtarSascha on Twitter, on Goodreads, Meet Sascha Aurora Akhtar on poetryinternational.org, Buy Love Like Blood
About the book
With #LoveLikeBlood, which is the title of a very famous song Love Like Blood by 80's stalwarts Killing Joke, Sascha Akhtar takes her poetic journey back to her origins. The first poem in the book is called GirlChild of the 80's to send the tone straight from the beginning. She IS in fact an 80's child & wants others to know this, with the names of the Barbie dolls specifically from the 80's mentioned in the poem.
This collection of poems is meant to contain the poet's life - a legacy of mental imbalance, undiagnosed aspergers for most of her life - through language. 'I believe all of my life- from my father leaving when I was 4, to a legacy of abuse ( physical & emotional), a history of mental illness but striking out anyway on my own- leaving Pakistan, leaving America all of it alone - has been rupture and that is what this poetry collection contains: rupture, deep emotions & process but also alchemy & 'becoming' ( the poet is also a meditation guide & healer which was prompted through her own healing). The dedication reads: This book is dedicated to You, for there is no ‘I’ except in You
& the same love runs through our veins. Like blood
A child or teen of the eighties will hear the rebel yell of the title of this book. The song speaks to and awakens the soul of the searcher, the seeker and the fighter. The poems are indicative of a poet with a soul searching for answers and connection.
The book contains the following poems: Girl Child of the Eighties, Love Like Blood, Nekyia of the Cataphiles, Ejaculate As a Noun, Ida Hexe, Sometimes the sun, Intimacy, Camino de Cadaveres, Machine-o-mancy: Found Poem, Spring Aspie Remix, Post-Colonial Theory, Anatomy of a Car - Crash, L'aeroport, In Utero, Heartwood, Nocturnal Emissions, Freak Beach, The Others,Mevlevi in a Gas Mask, Texted Plein-Air Poem on Bond Street Spliced W/Communist Manifesto, The Rape of Nanking by Men, Comforted by Rape, Harringay Train Station, Synaesthesia, poetry, Thangka Number 1 Bardo, 3:15, Retractable Patio Awning Systems, Line, Autobiographia, Poems for Eliot and A Year in Clouds.
Whilst the contents or listing the contents of the book may seem arbitrary they also, when viewed as a whole give the reader a certain idea of what to expect or not to expect. Just the titles speak of an almost inspirational Blitzschlag and experience. Akhtar feels in the moment - writes in the moment. Grabbing those thoughts in mid inspiration and grasping them tightly in case something visceral eludes her. The constant grasp and throwing down of words is mirrored in the way her poetry is portrayed.
There is no collusion with the norm. No rhyme or notion of order. Imagine her, the artist, with a paintbrush or even a hand dipped in paint throwing her words on the blank canvas. Sometimes she screams them, throws with a volatile motion and other times they are laid carefully onto the page.
It's experimental poetry - I would even go as far as to call it speculative poetry, because it doesn't adhere to norms or boundaries either spatially, emotionally or from a literary point of view.
Her poetry is an experience. No, let me rephrase that thought. Each poem is an experience in itself. The titles are doors asking, demanding, inviting and challenging the reader to come on inside and partake in her words as they themselves become the interior of her design.
Step inside and let the poet show you where her rooms and words collide with yours and mine.
Buy Love Like Blood at Amazon Uk. Publisher: Knives, Forks and Spoons Press - Paperback. Release date November 2019 - £12.00. Buy at Amazon com. Buy at Knives, Forks and Spoons Press.
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