The Rahma Awards 2019

Take Two: Poetry And Its Speech

Resident Reviewer, Miss Nusi ( @nooceeH ) has written another review for this beautiful poetry book, Ma Shaa Allah! Enjoy! ❤️✨

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Book: Let Me Speak (poetry collection)

Author: Leen (@WithoutABorder)

Title: 10/10

Cover: 7/10

Content: 10/10

Rating: 18/20

Total marks: 45/50

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Most of us have only seen what wars and acts of terrorism have done to the Middle East, its people and the world in general through the eyes of the media, through a few documentaries and movies here and there. We all can acknowledge the double standard approach the media uses in reporting them.

Some of us only know and hear about islamophobia through crimes committed against our own flesh and blood.

Some of us know and have heard how people have faced or are facing discrimination just because of the colour of their skin.

Some of us have experienced all of that firsthand... some, relatively. And for others, only the resulting consequences.

For almost all of us, the media is the one and only source we obtain information regarding the above mentioned points from. Insensitive headlines, half truths and twisted information are being fed to us everyday and all from a single perspective; the third person's narrative, the one who isn't involved in the story, the eye that narrates only what it chooses to see and there is very little we can do about it. 'Double bomb blasts kill hundreds in Syria', 'Unidentified gunman opens fire in mosque, killing 10', etc are examples of headlines that have become normal to our ears and minds, we are becoming almost insensitive to them.

Let Me Speak provides a fresh and different side to the story, and from a different perspective. How the refugee child, the widow, the victim of a shooting spree, the person who had been stripped of his right to live in his country of birth in peace, the victim of racism and islamophobia feel.

Leen, the author, has given these categories of people a voice, in addition to her very own in this collection of over 40 poems.

This poetry collection comes from the deepest, pained, frustrated, vexed, bruised and struggling part of a soul that yearns for peace, freedom for itself, for the ummah and for the world.

The soul which bleeds a bit more as news of innocent souls being massacred reach its ears everyday.

The soul that finds itself in the shoes of the victims everytime news like this is heard whilst bearing blame after blame just because of the religion it chose to practice.

The soul that misses and craves for it's homeland, the one the it couldn't live in due to war-related reasons.

The one that wants to share how living in another world apart from yours feels; an unwelcoming world mind you, even though it has every right to.

The one that is struggling to keep and wear its identity as a Muslim in a world that mocks and labels them as terrorists. A world that interprets and judges it's every move negatively and questionably.

Leen had found a way of channeling her inner turmoils through bleeding out words from her heart, which come out in turbulent waves of poetry; deep, heart wrenching and fitting.

From the befitting title and description, you would know that you are in for an experience of explosions of tamed and bottled up feelings; I can attest to that.

The poems would likely draw you in, leaving you in a trance afterwards just like how you would feel after being interrupted after having just a bite of your favourite dessert- you would definitely crave for more. And no, I don't mean that the poems are light, they aren't dark either. They are just a real wake up call for some of us who have been desensitized from all the brutality and chaos that is happening in the world today.

The author wove the words in such a way that you need to focus and read between the lines to absorb their full meaning which in my opinion, is what poetry is about.

Although not full of so much rhyming lines, the poems are satisfying to read; you are likely to feel the same emotions being carried by the words; of hope, pain, loss, fear, and longing.

Amongst my favourites are, 'Let's Play The Quiet Game', 'Death Day' and 'The Pursuit Of Salam' because Ya Rabb, you can feel the vexation!

'Mama' and 'Go To Sleep' portray how painful and difficult it is to lose your loved ones while being hopeful and trying to survive through war.

'Judge Me' and 'Suit of Armor' would give you an insight on how exhausting it is being in the author's shoes.

Let Me Speak speaks for the victims in and from Burma, Palestine, Rohingya, Peshawar, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Yemen, Uighur, Sudan, Syria and the rest.

Let Me Speak is a voice for every oppressed Muslim, refugee or not, victim of war or not in the west, east, south and north whose freedom to live like every normal human being and to practice his/her religion in peace is being sabotaged.

Let Me Speak is for everyone who calls himself/herself a Muslim, to read, to ponder upon and to feel because we are one ummah, one body.

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SubhanAllah, so many beautiful messages wrapped in poetic lines! - Jasmin 🌼❤️✨

[Written by: @nooceeH (Nusi), edited by: @writer_muslimah (Jasmin A.)]