The Pomegranates of Kandahar

In Sarah Maguire’s newest collection, her rich and lyrical poems travel greater distances than ever before. The title poem laments the devastation visited upon Afghanistan following decades of war. Others consider the casualties of political unrest: would-be migrants in Tangiers gazing northwards at the longed-for phantasmagoria of "Europe," and packs of wolves on the loose in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. There are intimate moments as well, as in "Landscape, with Dead Sea" where the erosion of the poet’s skin is connected to geological transformations at the earth’s core. This is a moving and powerful collection of work.