How Things Tasted When We Were Young

Nadra Mabrouk's poetic debut, How Things Tasted When We Were Young, is a sleek, visceral volume that disturbs as it enraptures, in the spirit of a young and ever-evolving Adrienne Rich. It seems to me that a talented poet articulates what is most beautiful in the world-"a small body already forming on the lips of the mother, / pink and thick and wanting." A visionary poet does this, too, and also something more. She articulates beautifully that which is not easy to look at, not easy to love: "your skin glows: / glaucous, a halo of ash, dead skin on each cheekbone." An enduring poet does both of these, and also something more. She examines herself in light of all that is beautiful, all that is not: "But I only/ know the tongue of conquerors, the curves of the Arabic alphabet, / as the vowels curl into each other like hooks into flat palms." Nadra Mabrouk is talented and visionary. She writes poems that will endure. Julie Marie Wade, author of Postage Due: Poems & Prose Poems and When I Was Straight: Poems *** These are lush, intimate poems, full of rivers and bodies and family secrets. From Florida to Amsterdam to Egypt, Nadra Mabrouk creates a poetic geography by turns tender and sharp-eyed, sorrowful and celebratory. Campbell McGrath