Mona Arshi

Mona Arshi Poems

Mona Arshi Biography

Mona Arshi is a British poet. She won the Forward Prize, Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection in 2015 for her work Small Hands. She was educated at Lampton Comprehensive School In Hounslow. She studied at Guildford College of Law and University College London where she obtained a Masters In human rights law in 2002.She worked for several years as a litigator at Liberty, the Human Rights Organisation. She acted on many high-profile judicial review cases including Diane Pretty’s ‘right to die’ case, asylum destitution cases and death in custody cases. She began writing poetry in 2008 and then went on study creative writing (Poetry) at the University of East Anglia (MA Creative Writing, 2010). Whilst she was studying for her masters she won first prize in the inaugural Magma poetry competition for her poem 'Hummingbird'.Then she then went on to become prize winner in the Troubadour International Competition in 2013 for her poem 'Bad Day in the Office'. In 2014 she was joint winner in the Manchester creative writing competition with a portfolio of five poems. In 2015 she published her first collection of poems 'Small Hands' with Pavilion Poetry a new poetry press from the Liverpool University Press under the editorship of Deryn Rees Jones.)

The Best Poem Of Mona Arshi

Notes Towards An Elegy

i.
Entirely occupied. A million throats
migrate towards my ribs,
secrete syllables in my chest.
All pores and openings have acquiesced.
I'm slurring in my sleep.

ii.
The accumulation of departures,
mornings of staring down light.

Blame the bend in the trees.
Blame the abstract.
Blame my stupid dumb hands.

iii.
I've forgotten what silence feels like.
Tongue loosened with no protest,
my other tongue, a ceramic figurine,
presses against my teeth.

iv.
What I know is that I'm straining to name the parts,
have failed to name the parts of the poem.

v.
The back of my hand inscribed with dates
are like the hands of a small-boned boy,
sitting under the twitching shade of a tree.

vi.
We found the stumbling bird together
and hand-fed her with white bread soaked in milk.

We had to leave her by the green shed and she did die.
You noted the delicate integrity of its fretwork.

vii.
Wait fast, ghost, you should see how the living room is
choked with living things and your mother is upstairs
sitting on your bed, nurturing scraps in the poor light.

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