A Year in Reading: Summer Farah

I began my year with Solmaz Sharif’s Customs. There is a line from the third poem in the collection, “Beauty,” that has popped in my head practically every day since I first read it: “A life is a thing you have to start.”

The month prior, I decided I had to review Customs because I simply could not wait until March to read it like everyone else. Like with all of my reviews, I spent hours and hours reading and thinking and writing; generous was what so many called me after taking in my 2000-word-or-so write-ups about their collections. At that point, I didn’t really want to review anymore because of the energy I was putting into them. But, Customs, my most anticipated book of 2022, gave so much back.

“A life is a thing you have to start” pulsed as I took walks in my Berkeley neighborhood, thinking . I began the year in crisis-mode, as I had been since the previous fall; an immense amount of had happened to me, too overwhelming to be precise. I wasn’t taking care of myself, I was experiencing new chronic pains, breaking down regularly. I felt like I. It was the first thought I had when I woke up, on repeat while I brushed my teeth, pulsed as I sent e-mails worded kinder than I felt, pulsed as I dealt with a rent board hearing, pulsed as I mourned lost relationships. I followed with ’s I did not enjoy this collection as much as I had enjoyed reading the whole of and so I revisited my favorites after; Oliver’s voice joined the pulse. From “Swan,”