Issam Zineh’s debut poetry collection Unceded Land is a lyrical marvel, tracing the lines of intimacy, loss, and the colonial legacy. With an eye that wanders from the subtly beautiful to the crushingly blunt, his poetry seeks out the “primordial egg within us,” the truths that are “traded in broken bones.”

Zineh’s capturing of the romantic and violent, the personal and the political, is a testament to his unwavering dedication to plumbing the depths of emotion that lie in psychological and physical territories alike. Unceded Land bridges the gap between the mind and the world, daring the reader to journey further into its depths.