"if you wish to read the story of my people look no further than my body." Pangaea is a collection of poetry about working through the trauma inflicted on a body, whether the trauma comes from a person, a country, or from within. It is the act of learning to be whole in a broken body, a broken world. It is a collection of tales told through generations of stories hidden beneath the skin."

This was a fascinating read told from a fresh and often under-represented perspective. It was great to see some serious topics being discussed and addressed in a new way. I really enjoyed reading this collection and would definitely recommend it to lovers of poetry and prose alike.

One thing about me is I love poems, the way you use the language in a non conventional way to give an emotion, a feeling, to destroy a person, to make somebody fall in love, poetry is without dubt one of the most difficult things to write. It is not only that you have to have a central topic, something you are going to talk about. That’s the reason, for me, Pangea was difficult to read.

I liked the firs couple of poems, the political background they had were shocking for me, because it was something I am not used to, and that took me back, but for good, it was a way of opening my eyes. However as the poems continue they were not at random, but I felt they didn’t have a guide line, they were about different topics and at the end I was confused. I made me feel it didn’t have a final purpose.

a melancholy, a sigh, a drifting dream, draping like a soft blanket over a body trying to be. this was blindingly, achingly beautiful and so incredibly emotionally resonant. i tumbled head over heels in love with this.

deftly-written and -put-together, to form an incredibly cohesive narrative. it's raw and real and unafraid to say things. there's beautiful vivid imagery and metaphors, and running motifs that are such a satisfying thread to tether you to the narrative and even give you a full-circle moment with growth. oh, and i absolutely ADORE the religious metaphors.

an exploration of identity, religion, love, mental health, family, trauma... it"s heavy, yes, but with prescient and acute writing that cuts right to the heart of things in the most beautifully poetic way, weaving words right through all the things we're afraid to say, splaying our secret heart of hearts out bare, tremulous, for inspection - it absolutely feels like a very cathartic collection that is so so healing.

chronicling the process of growing and learning and living and loving and the rollercoaster of healing from trauma, this whole book is something that will be very very special to my heart.

2.5 stars

not my favourite style of poetry but there were some poems i really enjoyed. this author has a lot of potential and i hope to see her future work delve deeper into the topics discussed in this collection

thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

A collection which can be read in one sitting. Rated three stars as it was an afternoon well spent but despite some beautiful imagery I don’t think these poems will stay with me. I expect this could be an interesting poetic companion to The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk which is also on my to read list.

Felt some of the poems were a little repetitive, but overall a good collection.

Could definitely see other people loving this.

Honestly?? I Have strong feeling that this is going to be my favourite poetry book of the year! Oh how many times I cry when I read it and I have reread this many times. My most beloved poem here tittled How Do You Love a Dead Girl.

In Pangea, Hinnah Mian explores trauma and the various ways in which it visits. She considers what it means to be an immigrant, a perpetually suspected "other," a mother, and a person living in a body. Her poetry is beautiful, meaningful, and the language is accessible - the kind of introduction I hoped to have to poetry. Pangea is a recommended, very interesting read.

This collection of poetry is beautiful! I loved everything about his book! Mian's attention to emotional detail and vulnerability in this collection welcomes the reader into her world and provides nuggets of wisdom that I will remember for a long time. This book is personal and confrontational as it challenges readers to understand the impact that political violence (imperialism, wars, etc) has on the mental and physical lives on the affected. Mian does not shy away from telling the harsh truth of her identity as a Pakistani woman in America which adds an undeniable layer of depth to this collection. I hope everyone reading this collection is as amazed by this writer as I am!

I am so grateful for the chance to read this poetry! I was intrigued by the themes mentioned in the description, and I do think that the collection had a very natural feeling flow from one theme to the next. I did find several individual poems in this collection to be moving and insightful and absolutely stunning, but I also felt that some of the poems began to blend together. Of course, there are shared themes and other elements, but I often found several poems that felt like they were versions of the same poem and it was redundant. As a whole, this reads as a collective work but it dragged a bit.

I only read 80% of the poems in this because of the repetition, I found it hard to keep paying attention and engaging with the poems, despite reading this over the course of a few weeks to give myself a break. For that reason, I will not post a review to Goodreads as I did not finish the work, but I don't know that I ever will so I wanted to at least give this feedback while I still had some thoughts in order about the poetry. I wish I had more concrete positive things to say here because I mean it that some of these poems we beautiful and I appreciate this chance to read them.

A collection of poems filled with rich imagery. Hinnah Mian, a Pakistani American gives us poems that express the literal and non- literal. The poems centre on themes like Depression, Politics, War, Violence, Religion, Racism, and Terrorism. An example of a poem containing multiple themes is ‘‘I explode in Quiet’’.
A poem that talks about the stigma left behind by terrorism against people of a similar faith, race, and religion. She laments how people label her and others of her race terrorists. Simply because of colour pigmentation, and religion. Her poem(s) seek to awaken people from such prejudice that terrorism is not a trait that is inherited via religion and skin colour.

This was a Very beautifully written modern poetry from a diverse perspective. Would recommend to poetry lovers!

There's something about this book that I'm unsure about. The poetry was nice, but it didn't flow and oftentimes wasn't engaging. I really enjoyed some of the poems, but the majority were repetitive and slightly combobulated.

Mian poetry is raw and emotional. Her haunting imagery shows the difficulties of looking different, feeling unloved and unrespected, and the consequences both have on your mental health. Her use of language makes each poem powerful. I read this collection in one sitting, so a few of the poems, although very special, felt a bit repetitive as a compilation. I would recommend reading these poems over time so you can truly enjoy the beauty of each poem. Some of my favorite poems are Palm Reading, Better Life, The Anatomy Of Haunting, and Allow Me To Introduce Myself.

At first I was worried that I would not relate to the poetry in this book as the first few pages were not quite to my liking. However, as the book progressed I found myself getting lost in the words and enjoying what was written. Poetry is a beautiful form of writing and makes you appreciate the experience of the writer which this book definitely did.

'In the film of smoke I see our ghosts, dancing, tethered to our past bodies.'

Thank you so much to the publishers for providing me with an eArc of this collection in exchange for my honest review.

I was very curious and interested in this book when I read the blurb. Discovering that most of the prose and poetry related to trauma, whether it was of the body, of a country, or other, I knew it would be a collection that I needed to read.

And I was right.

This collection was very beautiful and captivating. The flow of the whole collection was so smooth and seamless, it was hard to put down. There were so many sentences and phrases that caught me off guard and that I wanted to take note of because of how unique they were when describing certain feelings of grief and personal experiences.

If I were to start naming a few of my favourite poems I think I would be in trouble because I wouldn't be able to narrow it down!

Definitely recommend,

Pangaea is the kind of phenomenal poetry that captivates you not only while you're reading it, but after as well.
The author found a way to breathe new life into familiar topics. These poems give a voice to different forms of grief that have yet to be expressed."You are dead to me in every sense but poetry' is one of the most haunting lines that I have read. This line, like many other in the book, felt like validation. I love when it feels like the author orchestrated words to an unidentified ache within you. The author doesn't need to use these complex words to paint a vivid picture in your mind. While there is depth to each line, each piece is crafted in a way that anyone can empathize. Within a few pages of reading this pre-release I had pre-ordered the book. It's the kind of poetry book that can be read and felt over and over again.

Thank you NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for allowing me to preview this beautiful work in exchange for an honest review.

Hinnah Mian, thank you for sharing your outstanding work. Congratulations on your latest masterpiece.

This collection of poetry was truly beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

The poems in this collection range in terms of content however even the way the book has been structured is so perfect where even those with drastic topic changes flow from one to another seamlessly.

Words chosen on each and every line seem to have been done so with such intent and the impact they have is only increased by this.

Spoke about within the book is trauma and that is what it all centers around really but it is trauma inflicted from a person, from a country and from within ourselves.

This poetry collection was so powerful and impactful, I would 100% recommend and will be picking up more from the author in the future.

Thanks to @netgalley , the publishers @centavepub and the author @hennapoetry for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

One of my first forays into poetry in years, and, as it turns out, poetry may just not be for me. I can appreciate at a clinical level, both for the sentence structure and the emotion behind the epithets, but as a whole, it’s kind of a chore to read. There’s very little pushing me forward or compelling me to finish the book. As a whole, this was a servicable but tedious read.

Reading these poems felt like reading about the inner frame of the author. She touches upon myriad of topics and expresses them through her poems. Definitely recommended!