The book centers on the narratives of women who were raped (200,000 women total, called birangona) during the liberation war in East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh after the Bengali people seceded and obtained independence. The poems are powerful, lyrical meditations that vacillate between the perspectives of women who survived the sexual assaults ("interviews") and a narrator ("interviewer") who is removed from the experience inasmuch as she is not a direct survivor of the horrors of the liberation war, but rather is from the generation following it. The interviewer--Faizullah herself--has inherited these women's legacy. This interview with Faizullah about Seam explores her privilege, her identity, and her positionality in relation to the women she wrote about. The poems are generally free verse, but there are a few that implement formal devices and techniques; for example, "Reading Celan at the Liberation War Museum" is divided into sections, and the last line of each section is the first line of the next section.
Buy the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Seam-Orchard-Poetry-Tarfia-Faizullah/dp/0809333252
Read more poems here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56920/reading-celan-at-the-liberation-war-museum
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56921/aubade-ending-with-the-death-of-a-mosquito
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56919/en-route-to-bangladesh-another-crisis-of-faith
Author's website:
http://www.tfaizullah.com
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