Cutlish

2021 Four Way Books

Longlisted for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry

Silver Medal from the Northern California Publishers and Authors

“Must Read Book” from the Mass Book Awards from the Massachusetts Center for the Book

Finalist for the New England Book Awards

Winner of the Eric Hoffer Medal Provacateur

Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award

Finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award

Second place in the 2022 Guyana prize for literature

Read an interview between Rajiv Mohabir and KC Holburn at Full Stop

Praise for CUTLISH

“Rajiv Mohabir’s Cutlish uses history to interrogate the word ‘home’ and all that it might mean to those who thrive in spite of homophobia, stereotype, and xenophobia. These poems are grounded in definite time and space in a voice that refuses to be silenced, ‘They are vexed you survive; that you / rise up from the pavement...’ But what I love most is to read a poet as disciplined and committed as Mohabir as he transforms and reinvents himself in tone, in subject, and in line: ‘Let’s get one thing queer—I’m no Sabu-like sidekick, / I’m the main drag. Ram Ram in a sari; salaam // on the street. I don’t speak Hindu, Paki, or Indian, / can’t control minds, have no psychic powers.’”

-Jericho Brown

“Cutlish, Rajiv Mohabir’s stunning new collection, asks urgent questions about queer identities, diaspora and silence. Deeply grounded in 1838, the year the first ships brought indentured servants from India to Guyana, Cutlish reckons with the relationship between language and violence. These poems challenge the colonizer’s English through Creole, Sanskrit, Hindi, Hindustani and Chutney songs, dazzling us at every turn: ‘May each face who ever said, Speak English / find their own tongue fettered and split, / my mixed blood blackening their faces.’ The book’s title evokes the violence of a cutlass, and everywhere here we see language as knife and blade but also as solace. Cutlish is a luminous, beautiful book. Rajiv Mohabir is one of the most important poets writing today.”

-Nicole Cooley

“Rajiv Mohabir’s polyglottal collection will reward you with its formal boldness and gorgeous intimacy. I didn’t know that I came to contemporary poetry to find the end of English, until I read Cutlish. Here, Mohabir leads us enthusiastically to the edges of language—torn, improvised, as well as deftly carved—where music and meaning are visually and sonically sumptuous. This is a stunning book.”

-Patrick Rosal

“As multifaceted as the many languages in its pages, Mohabir’s latest collection (after The Cowherd’s Son) lyrically confronts history, homophobia, desire, tradition, colonialism, and place, grappling with identity on varied levels. The poem “May 5, 1838” commemorates the arrival of indentured servants from India to Guyana and deftly navigates the space between recognizing history and injustice (“On those first ships did they know their ash / applied evenly fertilizes the land-grant fields?”) and honoring diaspora (“We sow bits of ourselves in all corners: / flags on bamboo posts, milk poured into the sea.”). A refusal of erasure—whether of history, national identity, or sexuality—links many poems, and Mohabir repeatedly elevates the complexity of such themes. What does it mean to be “from” somewhere? What encompasses one’s culture or family, especially if elements of one’s identity are rejected within those structures? “Does wind stay trapped in a room when its windows / yawn? Without country it flows as river-water, / a traceless origin. How can this structure / of earth and bone be home?” Mohabir’s language is sharp and energetic, aware of the carving power of language, and often witty in its observations or address of weighty subjects (“O Ancestors, I’ve inherited passing”).

VERDICT Rich with history, layered, and likely to enthrall seasoned and newer readers of poetry. Highly recommended.”

-Amy Dickinson, Starred Review from Library Journal

“It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Rajiv Mohabir’s lush, melodic poetry. (We’ve published him three times, after all!) Cutlish is his third full-length collection, out this month from Four Way Books. Built around a semi-invented, musically inspired form that Mohabir calls a “chutney poem” after the work of Sundar Popo (considered the father of Caribbean Chutney music), Cutlish sets out to investigate the interstices of language and diaspora, postcolonial and queer identities. Patrick Rosal writes that, in its pages, “Mohabir leads us enthusiastically to the edges of language—torn, improvised, as well as deftly carved—where music and meaning are visually and sonically sumptuous.” If you’ve enjoyed the pieces of Mohabir’s that we’ve published in the past, you’ll definitely want to pick up a copy of this book.”

-Lantern Review

Our need to belong is fundamental, and we find ways to make space for ourselves in society. Queer Indo-Caribbean poet Rajiv Mohabir’s poetry blends language, personal, and colonial histories. Mohabir’s poetic voices call on us to come together to reconcile the past. He reveals the continued suffering of racialized forced labor and the economic deprivation it wreaked on his family…The poem blends Hindustani, Creole, and English as it describes Mohabir’s family migration from Guyana to Britain to North America across three generations. Cutlish is a celebratory, landmark collection about the language and cultural history of Indo-Caribbean people.

-Ruben Quesada in the National Book Critics Circle

“The symbol of the cutlish/cutlass/machete scattered throughout these poems attaches itself to the violent history of indentured slavery in Guyana, discrimination against the Indo-Caribbean community due to hegemonic beliefs, and the removal of culture and language for a sanitized assimilation. Yet Mohabir’s same cutlish slices open the space for a blend of languages, Chutney songs, and stories; its revival brings forth the will of self-acceptance, the memory of Indo-Caribbean traditions, and the roots for its survival."

-Ashley Somwaru, from The Adroit Journal