Khairani Barokka's
second poetry collection is an intricate exploration of colonialism and
environmental injustice: her acute, interlaced language draws clear connections
between colonial exploitation of fellow humans, landscapes, animals, and
ecosystems. Amidst the horrifying damage that has resulted for peoples as
interlinked with places, there is firm resistance. Resonant and deeply
attentive, the lyricism of these poems is juxtaposed with the traumatic
circumstances from which they emerge. Through these defiant, potent verses, the
body—particularly the disabled body—is centred as an ecosystem in its own
right. Barokka's poems are every bit as alarming, urgent and luminous as is
necessary in the age of climate catastrophe as outgrowth of colonial violence.