Green of All Heads

Girmay (the black maria) offers a nuanced meditation on loss and motherhood in her expansive and reflective fourth collection. Grappling with the death of her father, Girmay scavenges memory and family history to make sense of grief. In “Perception Milk,” she writes: “There was a time I/ thought everything/ could be known.” By contrast, these poems embrace a state of not knowing, approaching the world with a relentless curiosity even in the face of hardship. In a world in which “our dead/ are arriving,” Girmay searches for a language to commune with the deceased, turning time on its head: “I am looking back/ from the future,” she writes in “Washing the Mirror.” The poems are formally inventive, drawing on a range of forms including diagrams and scripts. The speaker manages to find moments of relief and beauty by cataloging the lush imagery of the natural world: “—i am learning to lift—my voice—like a flower—in/ —a field of flowers.” These are moving and beautiful poems. (Sept.)