Review of Asha Karami's poem 'I don't work for you no more'

Asha Karami’s poem ‘I DON'T WORK FOR YOU NO MORE’

I request readers to read the poem first from the link above and then my review. Thanks.

The poem is layered and limns two major disappointments of the narrator. The recent one is the abuse at work and the older ones were the never ending owes of her personal life. Her past was painful and the traumas were like death. But the poet is not comfortable mentioning it. She says my other side is strong and this fragility is not my identity. The following lines subtly convey that:

i was born with two vaginas

and i don’t believe in doors

this is my third death already and I’m only in my thirties

We see the mastery of the poet, when the poem smoothly transitions from the job front to the personal life, layered with the agonized mind’s involuntary reminiscences and the scars suddenly turning into contusions. The monologue at the instance of this fresh maiming assault on her opening old wounds cannot be coherent and logical or clear. Rather it never restricts to the second person who is the recent offender. It harks back to the onslaughts suffered in the past. The poet completely discards the culture of the unavoidable adjunct, the society, represented by the employer and mother contextually. There is no bonding or an evolving relationship in the air of the work place or home. Her longing for being unable to even know her half brothers is expressed well in the poem. She wants to breath her last only fully conscious because for her death is the only solace for all the abrasions inflicted on her in the past. The supremacy of poetry among all genres is the power of making the reader feel the emotions and sub conscious feels in very few words. The poet has wonderful grip over the craft and impact of the poem.