Runs Into Mine
Rooja Mohassessy
978-1932418811
Elixir Press (Feb. 1, 2023)
116 pages, $17, paper
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Reviewed by Teresa Williams
In the aftermath of trauma and displacement, how does one become at home in the world and within themselves? Rooja Mohassessy explores this question in her debut poetry collection, When Your Sky Runs Into Mine, winner of the 22nd Annual Elixir Press Poetry Award. “Here, too, I made my home,” Mohassessy begins the poem, “Loneliness,” asserting the painful truth of living in this emotional place. But the poem also demonstrates the power of the creative act to transform it into something life-affirming. It is a declaration of hard-won survival and resilience. As the poet finds her own images, lines, and rhythms, another kind of home in aesthetic form becomes available.
This gorgeous memoir-in-verse of ekphrastic poems is told in four sections that cover distinct phases of the poet’s life. Of note, most of the poems were inspired by the art of Mohassessy’s uncle, the Iranian painter and sculptor, Bahman Mohassess (1931-2010). In the first section, we learn about the poet’s childhood home in Iran, before and after the revolution. In “Ramazan in Tajrish,” the relationship between grandmother and grandchild, held within the larger context of God is honored: “You nudged me with a whisper / to rise an hour before azan / from under the thick of dove / feathers warm with your love / for God and me, the musty grandchild…” Here, home includes the safe spaces of faith and family. Sadly, the containment is torn apart by the onset of religious oppression and war. Other poems explore this dramatic break and examine “the significance of black after the revolution,” the strict mandates for women’s clothing and behavior, and the pervasive fear felt amidst power outages, bombings, and hunger.
Rooja Mohassessy is a writer adept at telling a story with elegant, sensual images. In the last three sections, she engages the reader in the emotional experiences of exile, coming of age, and the revival of identity. The tone is melancholic with many images of grief and loneliness, but we also find gardens, love, art, birds – images of rebirth – throughout the book. Consider this beautiful image of rootedness and new life at the end of the poem, “Eggplants”: “Black Beauty bows / under the California sun, /sending her roots into the red / sere clay of the Sierra foothills.”
The final poem, “My Only Bangle,” honors the poet’s cultural heritage and a newfound confidence in her identity. The opening line, “Today I celebrate my only bangle” is a testament to how far the speaker has traveled to come home to herself. This gold bangle will not come off her wrist, even after she attempts to slide it off with cream and soap. In the final lines, the image of the bangle speaks to her: “Here, it whispered, rub some kohl / under your eyes before you step out, / then let me hear you pronounce your name.”
Rooja Mohassesy is a name to celebrate and follow. Her brave capacity to meet her own suffering and transform it into gratitude, wisdom, and self-acceptance is an inspiration to us all.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 1.
Teresa Williams is a poet and psychotherapist in Seattle, Washington. She views poetry as a path of awareness. Her work has been featured in Lucia Journal, Psychological Perspectives Journal, Third Wednesday Journal, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and A Network for Grateful Living. Teresa Williams has an MSW from the University of Washington and an MFA in Writing from Pacific University.
Rooja Mohassessy is an Iranian-born poet and educator living in Northern California. She is a MacDowell fellow and a graduate of the Pacific University MFA program. Her first poetry collection, When Your Sky Runs Into Mine, was the winner of the 22nd Annual Elixir Poetry Prize and will be forthcoming from Elixir Press in 2023. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Poet Lore, RHINO Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, CALYX Journal, Ninth Letter, Cream City Review, The Rumpus, The Adroit Journal, Bare Life Review, Potomac Review, The Florida Review, New Letters, International Literary Quarterly, and elsewhere.
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