Mouth - by Mona Arshi (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Quick before the story ebbs away.
There are things I need to tell you

A work of great strength and equal delicacy, Mouth transports us to a world where violence hangs in the air, where beauty, pity and cruelty intertwine. The sequence at its heart, Palace, takes the overlooked women from the edges of Greek tragedy and places them center stage, to tell unforgettable stories of survival and loss. With new depth and force, their voices set off echoes with women navigating the terrible reality and aftermath of war today.

As a human rights lawyer, Arshi saw power and its abuses, the structures of silencing set against refugees. As a poet, she charts the movements and migrations that change the course of our lives - from child to adult, from home to elsewhere, from grief to what lies beyond.

Mouth is a complex and original study of speaking's limitations, chasms in communication, but also the unexpected power of silence: 'sometimes / language picks us clean'.

Review Quotes

'Delicately lethal; sharp-eyed and tender; Arshi's poems speak with devastating tongues of the truths and injustices that the world would rather we did not hear, in a voice as nuanced and contemporary as it is resonant across time'--Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young

'Some truths are hard to speak and even harder to discern. These rich and varied verses reveal truths that were there all along, uttered by women millennia ago, but waiting for the acuteness of Mona Arshi's ear and the surety of her voice'--Christia Mercer, Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University

'A beautiful, generous and empathetic collection, MOUTH is Mona's best yet: both personal and political, soulful and sensual, it gives such an interesting feeling of searching and remembering the past. Engaging with Classical tropes and both Ancient and contemporary wars, there is a clear sense of events, lessons and dynamics repeating. This is a mature work from a poet at the height of her powers'--Bidisha, author of Asylum and Exile

'Wildly imaginative ... Arshi has that rare gift of being able to persuade us to listen. ... Mouth is a book that turns the brain inside out - then beats it with a stick until the dust of ancient literature falls away... There is a spectacular wizardry to her [Arshi's] words'--Jade Cuttle, Observer

This vivid collection forces us to witness the violence inherent in grief--Guardian

About the Author

Mona Arshi's debut poetry collection, Small Hands, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2015. Her second collection, Dear Big Gods, was published in 2019 and her novel Somebody Loves You in 2021; the latter was shortlisted for the Goldsmith Prize. She has been appointed as Honorary Professor at the University of Liverpool and Fellow in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and is also co-editor of an anthology of nature poetry, Nature Matters, which will be published in 2025. Prior to her career in poetry, she worked as a human rights lawyer, often representing refugees and women fleeing domestic violence.