A short but powerful collection of poems, Palestinian diasporic writer, Zaina Alsous, uses the extinct dodo bird as an allegory to do a deep exploration of various themes, particularly ecology and colonial violence. I will admit that this collection leans a bit more toward the abstract, and while I did devour it in one sitting, I found that I had to take my time with a fair number of poems. For instance, “Birth Right” pushes the boundaries of the English language by forcing the reader to read the poem from right to left, like Arabic. Another example that I think reflects the colorful yet challenging lyricism of Alsous’s writing style is “bird survives the death of Nature.”

Alsous weaves the threads of past and present, as well as history and lived experiences to get her points across, even if they were difficult to parse out at times. Furthermore, I was utterly taken to the way she experimented with form and language in this collection. How she also placed herself in conversation with various theorists and historical figures, perhaps my favorite being how she engages with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” not only with a nod to the title in Alsous’s poem that is similarly titled, “Can the Dodo Bird Speak?” but also answering Spivak’s question throughout the collection to say, yes, the subaltern certainly can speak, in spite of everything. The way Alsous engages with critical theorists definitely adds another challenging dimension to this collection, but if you’re at all familiar with the works of Karl Marx, Sylvia Wynter, Edward Said, among others, these poems will be all the more thought-provoking.

This is a collection I know I’ll revisit at some point, given how rich the text is with its many references, of which I’m sure I missed a few.