A beautiful debut, and important to me when I was in my early "getting sober" journey. To name the wolf is not to banish it, but to refuse euphemism.

Kaveh Akbar writes out of addiction, faith, exile, and desire without mysticism-as-cover or confession-as-performance. These poems are alert to the body, suspicious of redemption, and acutely aware of language as both refuge and trap.

Akbar’s voice is direct, harmonic, and ethically restless. The poems move between sobriety and relapse, God and absence, erotic longing and spiritual doubt — always insisting on precision. 

A bracing, intelligent collection that has earned its reputation for a reason. If you loved Martyr, see where it came from.