Sundress Reads: Review of Nomenclatures of Invisibility

Where threads of culture, family, and faith intertwine, lies Nomenclatures of Invisibility (BOA Editions, 2023). Navigating the liminal spaces between past and present, homeland and adopted country, Mahtem Shiferraw skillfully weaves together a tapestry of verse that speaks to the heart of the immigrant experience. Through his evocative imagery and lyrical prose, Shiferraw invites readers into a world where identities are constantly in flux, shaped by the ghosts of ancestors and the weight of inherited trauma.

The core of Nomenclatures of Invisibility is stated openly in the starting poem, “The Eucalyptus Tree I.” Writing, “Everywhere we go, we smell of death / and something sweet” (9), Shiferraw immediately plunges the reader into a lush world juxtaposed by color and grief. This whole collection, too, follows death, yet combines it with motifs of nature. In the title poem, “Nomenclatures of Invisibility,” Shiferraw writes,

Here, Shiferraw paints a bright image for the reader, imagining the loss of memories and personhood due to the voyage (as part of the transatlantic slave trade). With the lines,  “When white faces sprout, / we are told to set ourselves ablaze” (10), she addresses the involvement of colonialism within the process of her family history. Shifferraw also writes: “the loss that follows us everywhere: /  behind mountains, past oceans, into / the heads of trees, how to swallow / a tongue that speaks with too many accents?” (10), showing the impact of those structures onto their individual personhood.

This idea of death haunts the reader throughout the collection. In “the Slaughter,” death is not simply mentioned but becomes the refrain. Shiferraw writes: “By this, we know to expect / the slaughter, and though our deaths are / not new, the dread will always break us open” (45), once again showing the amount of brute violence within her family’s past.

Shiferraw boldly confronts her roots and adds depth into her lineage, breaking past generational and other larger, institutional molds. The poem “Wuchalle” is a perfect example of Shiferraw’s poetic challenge. Written after the Treaty of Wuchalle, in which Italy claimed protectorate over Ethiopia, “the Italians, in Ethiopia, / granting anything, which implies: permissions, / relinquished” (22). Later on in the poem, Shiferraw questions the etymological nuances behind ownership of not just land and people, but also of language. Writing through the full history of the word of Ethiopia, but also keystone events in Ethiopia’s history,  Shiferraw culminates the resistance of her work in the poems’ final lines: “all over our bodies, suddenly spewing outwards / the insidious ways of ownership” (28). The idea of possession as colonial is something which Shiferraw hinges on through this whole piece, and with these two lines, she hits her point home. 

Another motif Shiferraw employs is that of the body. In “War,” Shiferraw exemplifies: “all things foreign – note: referring / to me, or, my body, as a thing; an object – are / made of war, or: things infested by war” (#). Similarly, in “Black Thing,” she writes, “we wear these maps on our bodies, / filled with bone etchings” (54). Here, Shiferraw uses the body and its parts as a metaphor for the different ways which history and lineage of colonialism has imprinted upon her. Yet, Shiferraw also radicalizes the body as a form of memoir and beauty. For example, in “Transcendence,” she writes of a woman whose “skin browns, henna drizzling / with the maps of ancient cities / she understands are found in her belly” (52). In “Mother Mango II,” Shiferraw directly compares her mother to a mango tree, writing, “Mother grows tall and orange; / everywhere she goes, a small / sun adorns new horizons” (65). The tone here becomes more hopeful and positive as Shiferraw changes our perspective of the body not just as a basin of hurt but also love and joy. 

Near the end of the collection, Shiferraw too seems to have undergone the same metamorphosis, writing in “Little Fires” that “I take these little fires / with me everywhere I go” (73). She has understood the differences in which her body—along with other female bodies—can be used for good, utilizing that confidence for herself to create change.

Nomenclatures of Invisibility is a collection full of promise, growth, and emotion. By the end, readers will not only understand the deep cultural roots behind Shiferraw’s work but also emerge freshened from their previous connotations on the body and language. As Shiferraw writes herself at the end of “Nomenclatures of Invisibility,” “This kind of language we know; / naming new things into our invisibility / and this, we too, call home” (13).

Nomenclatures of Invisibility is available from BOA Editions.

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Saturn Browne (she/they) is a Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant and the Connecticut Youth Poet Laureate, East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU) Artist in Residence, and the author of BLOODPATHS. Her work has been recognized by Gone Lawn, GASHER, Beaver Mag, Pulitzer Center, Foyle Young Poets, and others. She is an incoming undergraduate student at Yale University.