In her new collection, Egypt-born poet Marwa Helal plays with language to challenge the way we approach our problems. The poet wants us to be more open and curious, so that we can better understand how we see the world and what connects us to one another... With more openness towards our challenges – whether they are institutional, within a community, or even within a family or relationship – the poet hopes the reader will see this compassion too.”—Jeevika Verma, NPR
“In this innovative volume, Helal meditates on how to live both inside and against systems of oppression: patriarchy, capitalism, racism, and carceral government, among others. In lines that mingle pathos with bleak humor, Helal considers what it means, and what it costs, to belong—to the world, to nations, to one another.”—Poets & Writers
“I make my notes toward poet Marwa Helal’s Ante body (Nightboat Books)—so alive with plurals, so awake to a we-frequency—because it is part of a most vital and mystical practice of undoing. In her precision, she slits the grammars of empire, making language-openings that are brief refuges for her beloveds.”—Aracelis Girmay, Artforum
“Ante body, Egyptian-born poet Marwa Helal’s second collection, examines race, gender, migration, and language with intelligence and crackling originality... Such complicated, fascinating play with language makes this a collection worthy of revisiting, of frequent returns to puzzle through its many meanings.”—Diego Báez, Harriet Books
“The genre-bending second book from Helal offers a poetic sequence that examines systemic injustice and the psychological effects of contemporary inequalities and calamities. In lines that eschew standard punctuation and syntax rules, the poet circumambulates the topics of capitalism and patriarchy, using the white space on the page to self-consciously push the boundaries of poetic form.”—Publishers Weekly
“In her exploration of our post-pandemic political moment, Helal harnesses and discharges an energetic exigency, calling the reader into an honest mindfulness through non-traditional and experimental poetic play. Ante body invites us to trip over language, to recover, and view those stumbles as necessary toward achieving wisdom.”—Roz Naimi, ZYZZYVA
“The Whiting Award–winning Marwa Helal’s Ante body (Nightboat, May) uses daring language to interrogate the impact of migration in a globalized, capitalist world.”—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
In Marwa Helal’s Ante body we are pulled into a tidal pool swirling and remixing language from the shores and margins. Stretching from Egypt to the United States, Helal’s work breaches borders as they ought to be breached, refusing to recognize their validity and limitations. A treatise intended on speaking to notions of “power” from the gendered, raced, and colonized 'subject,' Ante body is driven by a voice embodied in the before and after. Full with humor and tilt, Ante body insists on interrogating how we come to know the present world and what we might need to cultivate a new ontology.”—Matthew Shenoda
“Helal is the MC and the chorus in Ante body, opening the veil to a private, choral language of crossing and being crossed. Ante body listens to and speaks 'live from the light unobserved,' the sound of the expansion of the universe, the underground illuminated communication of trees. I’m made more certain of the unrootedness of language, its recursive mysticism put on display within these poems. These poems are prayer and talisman against the spell of language that seeks limitation, control.”—Taylor Johnson
"Marwa Helal mines the interior decolonized mind and heart in an invented form that challenges us to read, think, and feel differently; Ante body is a memorable and ferocious argument for radical fugitivity."—Cathy Park Hong
07/01/2022
This latest collection from the Whiting Award—winning Helal (Invasive Species) explores the impact of migration, discrimination, and global pandemic in a capitalist society, showing how language can be used as a tool of oppression as well as a source of joy. A captivating aspect of the collection is Helal's use of the poetic form the Arabic, which she invented as a response to the linguistic discrimination experienced from U.S. institutions. In this form, poems are read from right to left: "? cages in children the put they why know you/ fly can we know they because." In other poems, such as "Bring Back Are Girls" ("It bejins in Berlin/ A Historical Case"), incorrect spellings are almost unnoticeable, showing how meaning can transcend the formal aspects of language like orthography and grammar. The humor and wordplay found throughout the collection don't keep readers from fully experiencing the weight of the themes being addressed. VERDICT Helal is a powerful voice in poetry, and this newest work does an excellent job of challenging readers to think differently about society. Those unfamiliar with Helal's work may benefit from reading the author's notes before diving into the poems, to get a better understanding of the collection and the formatting.—Sarah Michaelis
