Poetry Pals Book Club - July '25
Safia Elhillo - Girls that Never Die
Book Club July: ‘Girls That Never Die’
Author:
Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2022.
O.k first up, huge apologies. I had this post written in drafts and then somehow lost track of my dates and realised it should have gone out last week. On the positive, this is a skinnier poetry book than some of the ones we’ve read so far this year. So hopefully, if you are planning to join in this month, you’ll be alright!
And I am very much hoping you will because this book has been on my list for the longest time. I picked it up last week and am already half-way through. My pencil has been scrawling down the margins of numerous poems, post-it notes out in force. This is the sort of poetry where you get to the end of a poem and need to put the book down for a minute, sometimes longer, to take a breath, to work through what you’ve just heard.
The blurb from Roxanne Gay:
“An incredibly moving and well-structured collection of poetry about being a Muslim girl, about shame, about the silent hurts women carry, about the pressures of cultural expectations, about dangerous silences. The writing here is incisive and intimate and eloquent…Every single poem is stellar, no skips as the kids say.”
And a poem from the book c/o Safia Elhillo’s Instagram account:
Look forward to reconvening on the last Sunday of the month (27th of July) to chat more about this one.
Are you in this month?
Nelly x
I'm in!
I’ll be there, like that proverbial old penny turning up yet again. By the 27th I might even have received last months book 🤦🏼♀️.