Spilling the Chai: Poems about Family and Food takes us to the most intimate room of the house and the most ritualized moments of a family to explore what goes into the making and unmaking of a life-one in which we each must choose which spices to carry with us and which to discard.
For more information, please visit www.geneffajahan.com
To book readings and workshops, email SpillwithGeneffa@gmail.com
Geneffa Jahan's Spilling the Chai is rich and aromatic, with a sharp bite. It's about ritual and realization, about places where everything's "measured by hand and learned by heart." With linguistic flare, and a sure sense of story, these poems leave a haunting-and haunted-aftertaste. Despite hardships endured, these are offerings of love. Take. Eat. Khuda Hafiz!
- David Allen Sullivan, former poet laureate of Santa Cruz County,
California. Seed Shell Ash, Salt Pruning, Black Butterflies Over Baghdad, Strong-Armed Angels
In this gorgeous poetry collection, Geneffa Jahan "spills the chai not to cause harm but to clear things up..." daring to write about forbidden topics such as domestic violence and mental illness, and how an entire family is impacted.. With tears, laughter, and jolts of pain, this collection will feed you-gorge yourself on this poetry, but you'll be left hungry for more from Geneffa Jahan.
- Carla Rachel Sameth, former co-poet laureate of Altadena, Poet Laureate Fellow with Academy of American Poets, and author of What Is Left
Savor this moving collection of poems delivered with ample love, spice, and pain that's so deeply felt between tongues- Spilling the Chai will warm your soul and make you consider all that your heart keeps and releases in a lifetime.
- Ignatius Valentine Aloysius, author of the novel Fishhead. Republic of Want and the forthcoming collaborative poetry collection Salt Pruning
Having lived in India as a stranger, I appreciate Spilling the Chai's suspension between cultures, navigating a tightrope stretching from Surrey to Kampala to Gujarat-savoring the spices and spaces, skirting the pain, and buoyed by the dizzying richness of a diasporic world that transcends time and distance.
-Shizue Seigel, founder/ director of Write Now! SF Bay. Editor of Uncommon Ground: BIPOC Journey to Creative Activism and Essential Truths: The Bay Area in Color