Broken with a touch of soft hands

'How did you become someone?

In our family you are only someone if you cut hearts.'

Welcome to the world of Shabnam Baqhiri. The twenty-five-year-old poet sends her poems to the reader in the form of short and fiery lines, so that they are immediately wide awake. Leaning back calmly is not an option. After all, there is enough reassuring poetry already.

Violent experiences call for violent words. Baqhiri's anger and heavy-handedness are not a play, but refer to the plight of refugees and to Afghanistan, which has been suffering from changing occupations for so long. At the same time, there is humor and perspective in these poems, which can take the reader by surprise almost as suddenly.

The big surprise of this debut is its very own tone: merciless, but not insensitive. The title of the collection says it all.