To Die Is Not To Be Dead by Safa Khurshid

Description

To Die Is Not To Be Dead by Safa Khurshid
To Die Is Not To Be Dead
Author Safa Khurshid

ISBN: 9786277993672

Genre: Poetry

About Book:
A poetry collection of 26 poems, divided into ten parts. What does it mean to truly live? What does it mean to truly die? In her debut poetry collection, Safa Khurshid explores the questions that follow us through life: Who are we beneath the selves we have created? What does it mean to be free? Can someone be gone and still be present in our lives? Written over four years, beginning when she was sixteen, these poems grew out of childhood experiences, grief, family illness, spiritual searching, and the struggle to understand oneself. They reflect a young poet’s attempt to make sense of life, with all its contradictions, uncertainties, and unexpected beauty. One of the earliest memories behind this collection dates back to when Safa was eight. During her mother’s illness, she dreamt of her grandfather, who had died four years before she was born. Though she had never known him, the dream left her with a feeling of closeness that was difficult to explain. It became one of the experiences that shaped her understanding of love, memory, and loss. For Safa, the dead are not always as distant as they seem, and the living are not always fully alive. Across its ten parts, To Die Is Not To Be Dead moves through the many faces of human experience: from childhood and imagination to faith and doubt, from love and grief to freedom and the search for identity. Each poem approaches these questions differently, sometimes through personal experience, sometimes through symbolism, and sometimes through philosophical reflection. Within these pages, you will encounter: A little girl riding through her own nightmares. A puppet that cuts its strings, only to discover that freedom is more complicated than it imagined. White hyacinths growing in the darkness of the self. A grandfather reaching across an ocean of grief through moonlight. A devil who was once a child, searching for the innocence he has lost. Two poems inspired by the chapter “The Grand Inquisitor” from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. An unsent letter to a loved one who died before the poet was born. These poems do not attempt to explain everything. They leave room for uncertainty, for questions that have no clear answers, and for feelings that can exist together even when they seem to contradict one another. Perhaps we can be happy and grieving at once. Perhaps we can feel like strangers to ourselves while still searching for something familiar. Perhaps becoming who we are means learning to live with the parts of ourselves we do not yet understand. To Die Is Not To Be Dead is an invitation to sit with these questions and discover what they might mean to you. Because sometimes, the things we lose continue to live within us. And sometimes, finding ourselves begins with questioning what it means to be alive. For readers who: Find beauty in melancholy and seek meaning in suffering. Are drawn to poetry about faith, loss, identity, and the human condition. Enjoy philosophical questions that linger long after the words have ended. Have ever felt caught between who they are and who they are becoming. Believe that even painful experiences can find a place in art. A collection about what we lose, what remains, and what it means to keep becoming.

About Author:
Safa Khurshid started writing poetry when she was just sixteen years old. She did not write to impress anyone. She wrote to understand herself to make sense of a world that often felt confusing, painful, and beautiful all at once. Born and raised in Pakistan, Safa grew up surrounded by love but also by hardship. When her mother fell ill, she turned to words. When she lost people she loved, she turned to words. When she felt like a stranger to herself, she turned to words. Over four years, those words became poems. And those poems became this book.

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