A lively, strong debut, Zeinab Fakih’s I didn’t know how to say this, so I wrote it down is a collection of 100 poems that stay honest to the tragedies and joys of life. Some of the poems concern the larger, tragic moments that fall upon Fakih’s life – either emotional or physical in a sense. However, between each cry against those tragedies are poems that capture the complex moments of life – also with great range in the sensuality and physicality of these moments. The poetic devices used to enhance a reader’s experience connecting Fakih’s imagination to that of her readers. The title itself expresses how Fakih reveals herself in this collection and hopes that readers will understand and relate. The passion that lives behind each carefully dictated poem speaks out with purposeful structure, capitalization, and shape. Each turn of the page forces the reader to reach beyond themselves, and look through Fakih’s artfully crafted lens in relation to their own experiences. Throughout the collection, the reader is encouraged to reminisce about life, on a scale of the good and the bad, with Fakih’s creative nudging.

The poems “The City #1” and “The City #2”, both the length of a page, are examples of how Fakih compares the good and the bad of life in a simple yet touching way. Both poems enact the ups and downs of city life. For a reader who’s experienced it or one who hasn’t, Fakih paints vivid images of the sound, the music, the cars, the sky and the crowd. She captures what city life really is, touching upon the personal and emotional advantages of living in such an environment. The sense of community a city brings to Fakih is delicately put into words in a vague but vivid manner, so much so the reader can only imagine the poem to understand the emotion behind it, and relate it to their own life.

The more personal poems in the collection vary from anecdotes of love and vulnerability with people in Fakih’s life, both in second and first-person. “I’m Different” speaks upon the ideology that the people surrounding you in life expect you to remain the same, and the poem contrasts that to people thinking you are a “rock.” The simile continues, however, simply explaining that rocks are victims of erosion, ergo they change. The analogy both speaks out to the angst suffered by both parties when people go through stages of change and seems to shut down the common belief that personal change is always good. Additionally, as the pain of change is rarely put into words, the short poem is able to accurately pin this feeling down in eight lines. 

In a slightly longer poem that ends the book  – “Plot Twist” – Fakih continues her line of vulnerable and provocative honesty. She reveals the end to a first-person love story as something she hadn’t expected – a twist that was hard-won. She expresses that once the love was gone, she was still going, still alive, and still loving herself. The depth of her simple poem is able to dictate the difference between what she had expected at the end of her love story, and how it really allowed her to grow, to accept herself as an individual supported by those around her. It is an important message, and not the only one spread throughout the collection. 

Due to the emotion that pulls at our vocal cords, as well as insecurity founded from society’s expectations of what is acceptable to converse about, some topics are difficult to breach and discuss in a healthy way. Throughout the collection, Fakih liberates herself to write whatever comes to mind engaging with these topics. She does not hold back in vulnerability, or passion, or curiosity. Asking the big questions, or even the smaller ones, these poems are relatable to people of all ages. The author being a 20-year-old Ryerson University student, who lives in Toronto, does not hinder the emotional reach of her work, or the capacity she shows in expressing herself. Her clear voice, honest prose, and vivid images inspire the reader to seek further into their own heads for the things that, they too, might not have been able to say. Luckily, I didn’t know how to say this, so I wrote it down is where to look for Zeinab Fakih’s beautiful poetic take of those hard to talk about topics. The ones that give life the happy up and downs that it really contains.