Kintsugi Through a Kaleidoscope

金継ぎ / Kintsugi [kin-tsoo-gee]

(noun) the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.

This debut poetry collection is a lifelong journey of heavy reflections, thoughts, and experiences from the lens of a second-generation Egyptian-American Muslim. This book explores themes and emotions of longing, loneliness, regret, anger, sorrow, with progressively bigger imprints of hope for a better future and stronger sense of self. By choosing a Japanese-oriented title for this collection, the book conveys the importance and beauty of a foreign cultural concept that anyone can incorporate in their own lives.

It is an expression of authentic feelings and experiences in an increasingly curated society, touching on heavy subjects like grief and depression while interrogating the idea of hiding these very emotions even from ourselves. Like the concept of kintsugi, people are just as beautiful because of their struggles and imperfections, rather than in spite of them.