Amid beautiful, velvety, esoteric illustrations by Ángel Faz and Jack (Anna) Jackson, Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi’s poetry nestles like a jewel. In a debut poetry collection traversing everything from motherhood and political activism to the digital age and ongoing global crises, Hirsi does so deftly, boldly, and without flinching.
Dreams for Earth (Deep Vellum, 2025) is comprised of sixty-three poems that are broken into six sections. Hirsi is never cautious about style or structure, utilizing a new poem format which she terms ‘orb’. Among other rules on rhyme scheme and patterning, the structure comprises 24 lines in 8 tercets. There are five ‘orbs’ in the collection, but the unique style is far from being the only structural feature Hirsi engages with. Deliberate spacing, clear visual mimicry (see Again Birthing Again Birthed Again Again Again [46], and August. Blackberries Everywhere. [81], etc.), alongside incomplete and overflowing lines. This enjambment in particular leaves thoughts half-finished, guiding the reader to different, yet natural conclusions. Each use is interpretive, strongly aligned with the breadth of the poetry––by which I mean Hirsi warps the tools at her disposal far beyond their intended purpose to better suit her rhythm and narrative. The resulting impact is like watching a master at work, particularly identifiable in Kill the Messenger.
Similarly, the two halves of some of Hirsi’s poems (Anticipation, among others) exist in duality, as lines to be read all at once. This duality, however, extends beyond the structure of the poems and into the themes themselves. Hirsi’s uncompromising womanhood and motherhood seamlessly co-exist: to fear and to be feared. Or in Hirsi’s words, “My daughter brings new reasons to live but also new reasons to fear” (47 Orb: Bloodletting). This was one of a few themes that carried a certain, memorable glow, with the two identities reconciled through a shared understanding: “No pill will make me forget crimes of men with power” (116 Thresholds).
Another theme that runs through the collection like a sparkling, meandering river: Hirsi’s faith, which glints through her language in moments of impressive clarity. Although she discusses her references and inspirations in the ‘Notes’ section at the end of the anthology, citing Patterns and An Astrology, echoes of the Old Testament and faith ring throughout, interrogative and resounding in their questions, “If God can break a promise / we can’t expect much of mortal men” (27 Patterns). But it was Hirsi’s perspective that I adored. The interweaving of faith with spirituality and nature: “What is the Fibonacci sequence but God singing” (78 Hubris).
Hirsi offers not just a vision for the material needs of Earth to be met, but one where we understand each other and the world around us—the soil beneath our feet, the birds, the beasts, a dream to live in tandem with nature. This idealism is not untested or passive. Rather, the collection reaches deeper into that desire, toward an underlying fear that the sacred natural things are being perverted by technology and heartless science, a sentiment underpinned by a greater plea to bring back community. Hirsi conveys an infuriating sense of powerlessness over how taxes are spent funding genocide, how the miracle of creating new life is reduced to “geriatric pregnancy” (115 Thresholds), and how there is: “no validation of the force wielded by The World” (115 Thresholds). We are aligned with the speaker––simultaneously a voice of the inner consciousness, a YouTube user, and a dating app participant. Hirsi asks what it is to be human in the present day. But the voices with which she asks are the real magic of the collection.
From as early as the first poem, two voices emerge: the first, a dreamer—the tree who grows despite the fears of “disease drought men who think they own”; the second, the shadow that the dreamer casts in bright sunlight. The fear of being a poor mother, of being unfit for generational wisdom, “I have trouble feeling worthy / of hearing so much guidance” (34 Of Naming and Not). From the first, we are given a gentle schooling: worldly advice from one still so wide-eyed and hopeful. The second is darker, offering fragments of understanding. As with deciphering an ancient text, one must be comfortable with not understanding everything. Some things are not designed to be understood. Laid out flat and picked apart. Hirsi’s poetry has teeth. It will not surrender any interpretation without effort.
This is the same tone the collection takes to political commentary. Hirsi refuses to be silent, and her struggle bleeds through every page to offer splinters of a non-white perspective in America: “Those advising against our home birth don’t / know all the ways this country tries to kill us” (45 Again Birthing Again Birthed Again Again Again). But her protest extends beyond her borders, specifically to the Palestinian genocide. When reading Fecundity, I am reminded of the words of Omar Al Akkad, “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”
And so, I think of the second installment of a DREAM FOR EARTH, “Yesterday was the time to become ungovernable” (94)—a call to anger, to become monstrous. And yet Hirsi asks us to imagine if “there were no divisions / if there were no stores / just joy / like children finding flowers / or discovering pockets / or the feeling of The Sun on a cool spring day” (61 Poem About Pockets). Dreams for Earth is beautiful.
I did not have enough room to discuss all my favorite poems from this collection, so here is a brief list of my favorites and the power they hold for me.
- Orb: Do Not Disturb, for its inscrutable grief and unique genesis.
- Dreams for Earth, for its blazing hope, vision and boldness.
- Patterns, how do you kill a frog? You boil it slowly, with routines and patterns it recognises, and you remind it that ‘this is all normal’.
- Frequently Asked Question, for its doomed, tragic hope.
- Solidarity, for its pain and its refusal to stop moving forward.
- Remarks by President Biden on Recent Events on College Campuses / his truth in his lies, for the clarity and passive revelation beyond its structure and insight.
- Tell the Children, for the revolutionary importance it places on teaching children wrath just as much as love.
Dreams for Earth is available from Deep Vellum in paperback and eBook format.
Rachel Bulman (she/her) holds a BA in English and Creative Writing as well as an MA in Publishing from the University of Exeter, specializing in interactive and children’s fiction. Her written work has appeared in The Book of Choices, Velvet Fields, and Exeposé, among others. Find her on Instagram @worm.can.read, through her online portfolio, or ask the bridge troll who taught him his riddles three.
