Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
I cannot be good until you say it
- Narrated by: Sanah Ahsan
- Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
Buy Now for £7.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
Bloomsbury presents I cannot be good until you say it written and read by Sanah Ahsan.
The much-anticipated debut collection by the winner of the Outspoken Performance Poetry Prize: a tender meditation on queerness and Islam
'Dissolving whatever boundaries would wall us off from love, Ahsan finds a way to let it all be holy' Victoria Adukwei-Bulley
'When I speak of the word "sacred", Sanah Ahsan's I cannot be good until you say it will forever instantly spring to mind ... A masterpiece – an honour to have listened this book, I am forever changed after listening to its beauty' Nikita Gill
'Innovative and deeply compassionate ... multilingual verse suffused with a vital musicality and a palpable tenderness, Ahsan calls poetry into prayer and evokes a faith safe enough to be mothered by' Mary Jean Chan
'Dexterous, varied, erotic, filled with rage, worships and wonder ... I am electrified' Pádraig Ó Tuama
'Tensions of psychological drama, together with an induced sense of yearning.. what an artful and inspired set of poems' Anthony Anaxagorou
'Liberation is at the nucleus of every page of Sanah Ahsan's rousing debut ... Ahsan is doing liberation work, offering listeners a prayer, a song, a hand to hold amidst the amidst' Kaveh Akbar
'A remarkable and transformative collection' Keith Jarrett
'A daring debut collection, which guides us through the complexities of just being' Yomi Sode
'Alive with a want and restlessness that remakes the "You" of desire – and faith – again and again' Will Harris
'A heart punching debut collection' Raymond Antrobus
______________________________________________
Intricately weaving Quranic verse, psychology, and the hip-hop soundtrack of their childhood, Sanah’s poems reach for divinity in the body; an archive that refuses erasure.
These poems traverse unruly emotional and physical landscapes, Whiteness, islamophobia, homophobia, intergenerational suffering, and the politics of therapeutic processes. In these pages, belief and unbelief, goodness and badness, the material and spiritual are intertwined, reclaiming queer love and desire as holy.
How are we incarcerated by others’ gazes? Who gets to be good in a society built upon hierarchy? How might we embrace each other’s madnesses? Sanah Ahsan asks questions that travel to the heart of our humanness, bending the lines between psychologist and client to show us the sacred nature of our wounds. These poems kneel to the messiness of being alive, building altars to complication and presence.
Refusing binaries of gender or religious doctrine, I cannot be good until you say it finds what is to be revered in the grey spaces of morality, advancing imagination and self-compassion as sites of communion.
This debut collection is a call to prayer, fearlessly complicating what is good, and what is god.
What listeners say about I cannot be good until you say it
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 11-07-24
we all want to be held
Raw and unfiltered. Dr. Ahsan's spoken word somehow manages to pierce through the soul yet heal it at the same time. The book tackles both dark and light-hearted themes in an unapologetic manner that only the most traumatised parts of us can relate to. Rightly or wrongly, you'll only be left wanting more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!