In this collection of over 50 poems from Finishing Line Press, Zakia R. Khwaja takes you on a journey both mythic and real, joyful and tragic. She celebrates her Indus Valley heritage even as she unflinchingly holds a candle to hostility and tragedy in the region. These are stories of legends and culture, of turmoil — political and personal, of triumphant self-discovery threaded with a love of language and literature.
$19.99
Praise for Stones Hold Water:
“In her debut collection, Stones Hold Water, Zakia R. Khwaja weaves a tapestry of images – both bright and gloomy – and places it in the frame of endless time. Her craft is solid but unforced because it submits itself to the depth of emotions and a haunted sense of being. The poems in this collection demonstrate a powerful facility with words and a sure grasp on the skill of writing poetry. She is a master storyteller in verse of the personal angst brought about by shifting cultural milieus across three generations and three countries. Zakia R. Khwaja has arrived.”
– Harris Khalique, author of No Fortunes to Tell and recipient of the Presidential Pride of Performance Award, Pakistan.
“The pulse beats hard in Zakia R. Khwaja’s marvelous Stones Hold Water where we inhabit a palpable, multilingual experience of the Indus Valley cultural heritage teeming with elders, soothsayers, kingfishers, Urdu, vulture skies, saffron, a Eurasian Wild Boar, secrets…These poems are alive and hungry! They carry authentic wonderment and love, lamentation and longing, and especially later in the book, deep grief over human violence. At the heart of the book, the female speaker seeks, reveals, questions, and celebrates complex layers of female identity. Turn to any page, and you will find in these narratives incredibly lush lyricism and powerful rhythms. I have so much admiration for this poet and her rich, urgent connection with language. By the end of our journey, the speaker shake[s] out the bare bones / of [her] wings. The reader, still breathless from her flight, is ready to read more.”
– Alessandra Lynch, author of Pretty Tripwire.