Say Fire

"Words 'are like teeth,' our speaker tells us, preparing us for the sharpened incisors these poems will bare. Steeped in the fear of not being able to bear witness, the words here are not only like teeth; they are also like rocks holding the fluttering world down, like pinpoints of light, like little detonations clearing out a space so that the real may appear. While a suicide bomber watches syndicated comedy, the intelligence of the poem notes, 'safety pins, shawls / caught in car wheels, knots, snowdrops, / I have a head,' and we are, alongside this speaker, awake to the whole world." —Eleni Sikelianos

“Rich and multi-dimensional . . . Asotić’s work presents a layered portrait of consciousness that readers can find themselves in and find opportunity to be challenged.” —Stacy Mattingly

“The concept of home is highly coveted and rarely concrete, but writer Selma Asotić explores the possibility that home is not entirely physical. As a bilingual poet from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Asotić has grappled relentlessly with a sense of belonging, finding refuge in the art of literature.” —Daily Free Press

"In Say Fire, Selma Asotić’s masterful debut, the flames of language present a Mobius strip of history and memory and the never-endingness of war. “How fast the shadows lengthen when you try to outrun them,” she writes. And while the outrunning may be impossible, the witnessing, with its hamster wheel of suffering, grenades and loss––and also love and tenderness and resolve––is not. In this arresting reckoning, Asotić writes: I think of you/ in as many ways as the rain falls. It’s a searing rain and fire she gives us, and an all-too-timely reminder of the untiring half-life and brutality of war." —Andrea Cohen