Mother | Line

By Ankita Saxena

What do we inherit from our mothers? From our grandmothers? From the legacy of colonisation and empire? Mother | Line, Ankita Saxena‘s debut poetry collection, charts lineage in all its forms, delving into female rage, compassion, and endurance. Drawing on the author’s British Asian heritage and experiences growing up as a woman in an increasingly violent world, this collection weaves together the personal and the political in ghazals, odes and specular poems, which hold a mirror to the world and to themselves. “We are daughters of Kali”, Saxena writes, and “mothers linger on the sides, hearing us become them; / our routines only theirs to thank for, our spices, / our blends, and even our greedy tongues.

“A sublime and considered collection, speaking to, and spanning lineage, inheritance, friendship; what it can mean to be a girl, a woman in the world — across continents, oceans, time.” - Rachel Long

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verve Poetry Press
• Release date: May 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781913917784

Ankita Saxena

Ankita Saxena is a British-Indian poet and performer. Her debut collection Mother | Line, will be published by Verve Poetry Press in April 2023, and is the culmination of over a decade of writing, editing and performing. She is a Barbican Young Poet alumnus, part of the Octavia Poetry Collective, led by Rachel Long, and one half of the poetry duo, ORIGINS. Her poetry is published in Wasafiri, Modern Poetry in Translation and Bath Magg.