Review of God Mornings, Tiger Nights by Nuha Fariha
By Cecelia Caldwell
What does it mean, as a person, to be whole? In her recently published poetry collection, God Mornings, Tiger Nights, Nuha Fariha answers that to be whole is to be an amalgamation of many different pieces.
As a writer myself, I often struggle to decide what to write about. Both the world and my identity boast infinite issues, nuances, and quirks about which I could write, but at the same time I always doubt if there’s any one thing I can write about in a way that is thorough, moving, interesting, and the list goes on. I think I could learn a thing or two from Nuha and her embrace of transforming the disjointed into something whole.
From abecedarians to prose poems, and everything in between, God Mornings, Tiger Nights is just as varied in structure as it is in content. Nuha, in only 55 pages, manages to navigate and explore with nuance her identity as a first generation Bangladeshi American, body image and the ways in which women are perceived and degraded in society, motherhood, racism, and family—the list goes on.
I thoroughly relished my reading experience of this book, though as I sat down to write this review, I struggled to think of what to say. God Mornings, Tiger Nights isn’t really about anything. Rather, it lives and breathes; it meanders down the road that is life and, on its way, manages to paint images that are eloquent and tender yet acerbic and hard hitting at the same time. I direct you first to a passage from “Anthem for a Young Girl with a Positive PPD Test”:
“Your cells are 56,977 miles squared. They are small mountains with rambling goats, dense forests with stalking tigresses, clear lakes with diving kingfishers, algae dappled ponds with swimming monkeys. Your tissues are holy: like the marriage of cardamom, cloves and cinnamon sticks. Your heartbeat is the steady tabla under Ferdous’s callused hands. You are 56,977 miles squared, 3 million people strong. You are a miracle and nothing less.”
Here, Nuha focuses her gaze from the atomic level all the way up to the divine. “Your tissues are holy. You are a miracle and nothing less.” Is there anything more remarkable than that?
In “Shanta in her Kitchen,” Nuha’s words, written in both English and Bengali, invite the reader into the kitchen, allowing us to relish in spellbinding sights, sounds, and aromas:
“Lamb’s breath sauteed with cumin, onions, garlic and green chillis from Aladdin’s Grocery on 14th and Jasper clings to her collar like an expensive perfume. The water hisses when it’s poured over, steam rising in protest. She traps under the lid, allowing a single stream to whistle her a lonely tune.”
Nuha’s lyrical verse has a way of capturing you, sucking you into her world and making sure you’re experiencing everything as if you’re there with her. She is not only a master of imagery, but a master of all the senses, in a way that I’ve rarely seen before. “Shanta in her Kitchen” makes me feel like I’m in a kitchen myself, listening to the sizzle of garlic in oil and inhaling its aromatic sweetness.
“A New Citizenship Test,” in contrast, skews political, as Nuha challenges the United States’ so-called “democratic” structures and practices through a series of rhetorical questions. She especially directs her indictment toward Donald Trump, infusing her searing critique with statistics and fact:
“What are the duties of the President?
To keep peace and unity among the American people.
Who was the only American president to be impeached twice?
Donald Trump.
If over 650 white supremacists convene in one area, plant a bomb, and kill 5 people, what does the President do?
Nothing.”
While Nuha knows how to master subtlety, she simultaneously refuses to shy away from bluntness. It is, in one word, refreshing.
Nuha masters what we all know in our hearts as we move through life: that to exist is both beautiful and tragic. It is to be at peace and angry at the same time. It is to read both poetry and the news. Our lives, then, are not novels; they are not stories to read from beginning to end, and that are tied together by one unifying theme. We are, rather, a collage or a collection of poetry. A bunch of lines, thoughts, and hidden meanings, that come together to form something not quite unified, but still whole.
So, after hours spent mulling over what this collection really means to write a meaningful review, I think I’ve come to an answer. It means nothing specific, really, but at the same time it means everything. To be human is, as Walt Whitman so masterfully put it, to contain multitudes. God Mornings, Tiger Nights, in so few pages, spans an entire universe, and while doing so it manages to fill your nose with beautiful scents and your heart with insurmountable grief.
I leave you with this quote, from Nuha’s “Breathe:”
“Breathe. Carve your name on molten surfaces. Breathe. Breathe. Don’t stop. Breathe and breathe and breathe and breathe”
God Mornings, Tiger Nights was released in August 2023 and is available from Game Over Books at gameoverbooks.com/product-page/god-mornings-tiger-nights.
Cecelia Caldwell is a rising junior at Middlebury College studying English on the creative writing track. She is minoring in Anthropology and Spanish. An avid reader and lover of words, Cecelia is passionate about publishing, editing, storytelling, literacy, and the diversification of all of these fields. In her free time, Cecelia enjoys writing satire, working out, cooking, and tending to her garden. She lives in western Massachusetts with her mom and two dogs, Ollie and Ernie.
*****
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