Grimoire of Grimalkin by Sascha Aurora Akhtar Jessica Traynor to a child’s reaction to

to a child’s reaction to being denied a responsive gaze

easily snapped

Phillis Levin

observations and folktales that place the small islands of his birthplace into conversation with moments from literature and history

Grimoire of Grimalkin by Sascha Aurora Akhtar Jessica Traynor to a child’s reaction toDeclared a contemporary masterpiece on its original publication in 2007, Sascha Aurora Akhtar's debut collection is a work of post modern Gothic. Its poems are concerned with mythology, meaning making, the magical and mystical; a grimoire is a magic textbook or spellbook. Akhtars writing skilfully blends archaic languages with contemporary slang, wordplay, and esoteric vocabularies to create a language of its own.