Suha Tariq

Ayaz Pirani, How Beautiful People Are.

Guelph: Gordon Hill Press, 2022. $20.00.

Ayaz Pirani’s third poetry collection is the embodiment of what it feels like to have a fractal identity. In this pothi, Pirani takes us on a journey through multiple realities—some are celebratory, while others are heartbreaking realities of being othered. Each poem feels like a glimpse into the world of the speaker, observed through the perspective of symbolistic inanimate objects that appear and reappear throughout the pothi. Some of the poems shift slightly through the four sections of the pothi, taking on new meaning and subtly altering my worldview as it shatters in front of my eyes once again. In the poem “Entropomorphist” Pirani writes:

I.
The pillows on the bed
accept the day’s arrangement.

The chairs pose.
In the closet the broom

has its own broom.
The lamp isn’t cornered.

Through the title of this poem, we know the speaker is breathing humanity into these objects. Their arrangement, stealth, pose and position are trying to tell us something. In this poem from the “Beloved Infidel” section, these objects, these caricatures of ordinary people, are existing freely and with contentment. The poem is a series of snapshots that take the reader on a tour of this room’s occupants, their personalities seeping through the gaps between the poem’s short, in-the-moment lines. These same occupants reappear in the next section, “Death to America,” in the poem “The Door’s Not Talking.” Immediately, the title is an anthropomorphism of the door. In a way, this poem is a continuation of the previous, but this time, it takes place in a harsher, sadder, fractured reality. In this world, the door isn’t talking. It probably didn’t even want to let you in. The occupants are stubborn:

It’s the sofa’s choice
whether to abstain.

Even from its interrogation posture
the chair won’t budge.

The lamp is cornered.
Who will light the room?

In this iteration, these seemingly ordinary objects do not accept the speaker’s decree; they move (or don’t) of their own volition. In this poem, they don’t feel the sense of belonging they did in the former poem. Pirani’s pothi describes the multifaceted way of life for people with hyphenated identities living in the Western world. Our experiences exist as a sort of collage of memories, feelings, learned behaviours and inherited traditions. Sorting through them, trying to be enough of everything we are—that is the beauty of being human. When Pirani writes “I’m living on the edge. On a dog-eared page,” and “I’m trying to print/but not be two-sided,” and “I’m so glad to be an artifact/and not a ruin.” he uses the ribbon of language to represent an intertwined existence. People are complex and Pirani perfectly encapsulates the feeling of sonder in his poetry. The poems in this collection aren’t long, but each and every one of them showcases a moment in time—in life—and stretches it into a sort of forever.
Throughout the collection, the ambience shifts slowly, toward a shining light in the distance. The poems in the final section, “Kabir’s Loneliness,” are filled with moments of finality, filled with the feeling of being on the cusp of something. The path to end, walking it alone. In this section, my favourite poem appears: “How Beautiful People Are.” This poem grounds the entire collection. An homage to the pothi’s title, this poem comes at the almost-end of the book. As you read through it, it hands you a wilting rose of wisdom, asking you the question: “What if they’re crying/and we’ve all been ignoring/how beautiful people are?”
With every read-through of How Beautiful People Are, I’ve discovered something special. In between the pages, lines, words and even the singular letters, Pirani has buried a sense of love, loss, longing and belonging. This collection is a testament to the vulnerability that categorically recognizes each one of us as tragically and beautifully human.

SUHA TARIQ

is a Canadian writer and editor who was born in Pakistan and spent her childhood in Saudi Arabia. She now resides in Milton, Ontario. Suha is the Publishing & Web Intern for The Ampersand Review of Writing & Publishing. She is a fourth year student in the Creative Writing and Publishing program at Sheridan College and works as a ghostwriter for The Urban Writers. Suha writes mostly shorter non-fiction works, however, she plans to author her own fiction novels in the upcoming years. She was also featured on Canada One News for their “Students In A Pandemic” special.