Kamilah Aisha Moon, “She Has A Name” (Four Way Books, 2014)

She Has A Name (Four Way Books 2014) by Kamilah Aisha Moon is a startling collection that dares to intimately address the way a family transforms when caring for an Autistic child. Deemed a “biomythography,” (a term coined by Audre Lorde), the works are cautious in their rendering and respectful in their assertions.

The reader is taken into the minds of each family member as they navigate the joys and difficulties of shifting their own perception to meet that of a loved one who experiences the world through an entirely different lens. Although we are not offered insight into the mind of the youngest sister, I dare say she is the poetry, she lives in the verse that we the readers must decipher and make our own.

In this debut collection, Moon also offers a singular view of the speaker in later pieces. Although there is a disconnect with the voices of the family, the speaker carries them with her as she wades through the world

Mysteries of mass wrong turns, sick leaders

and sirens forever sexy

land or sea.

The unequaled rush

and horror of forgetting

ourselves.

I believe this collection will be a companion to many souls sorting out their past and present realities, reconciling themselves with the worlds they’ve been given, and seeking to translate the many layers of existence into one, readable language.

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