It’s hard not to be floored by I Hope This Helps by Samiya Bashir. The pieces in this collection come at us from unexpected directions and sneak up in stealth mode. The first piece “The Dressmaker” shows up, unannounced to let us know this isn’t going to go the way we expect it to. It might even take a couple of flips back to the table of contents to make sure it was, indeed, the first piece and not a transition or title card. And that’s part of why this collection has the impact that it does: Bashir doesn’t work within anyone else’s parameters. With an ever-changing typography used from piece to piece, sometimes the poems run together, forcing us to step back and reread, reassess and untangle ideas from one another.
Early on, “Here’s the Thing” explores images of hot and cold as it zooms in on an evaluation of life …
I am fluent in fire. I am fluent in indigo miseries. I am fluent in the absence of heat. A rat on the street. Sudden and melt. I am fluent in how time presses a body.
before pulling back and admitting …
I know the meaning of a moment, but here’s the thing: Am I intelligent life? Pffft. How could I tell?
The poet twists her own self-examination into knots before tugging on the ends to reveal the rope was never twisted in the first place.
Bashir sucks up life experiences, absorbs them, considers them and then fires them back out in a flamethrower of references, life choices, and stern warnings. The poem “Hurry Up Please, It’s Closing Time” references active shooter drills, Roland Emmerich, T.S. Elliot, The Battle of Tippecanoe, and William Henry Harrison. On the first page. You’ll need multiple readings to shake that “Wait, what?” feeling once you’re done with each piece. Racism, slavery, mental health, a messed up country—they’re all ingredients that push the collection forward, but none of these is the central theme, really. If there is one, it might be this passage from “Per Aspera,” the second poem in the collection:
this world
spins designs
which madden
us shape us
like dough
bake us crisp
there may be those
who will crumble us
into paving for their own roads
listen: we mustn’t let them
The collection is a rumination on what it means to be a loving, thinking human in a world that doesn’t really seem to value love and thought.
Not to overshadow the poetry and the work Samiya Bashir put into writing I Hope This Helps, but it’s hard not to be blown away by the graphics and layout of the book. It’s impossible not to be drawn in by the look of the pages. A link in the back of the book takes you to an immersive experience to give a better idea of the multimedia and collaborative process that built this unique book. Bashir worked with musicians, artists, and more to make this work come to life.
The visuals are a litany of graphics, typography, and shades of black and white that boldly mix with the text and give an added, unique dimension to the words on the page. While most poetry appears as black text, neatly justified on a white page, this book uses every spec of space on the page to deliver the pieces. It sometimes gives the illusion that each of the poems never end, they just continue in the next available space. It may take a couple of attempts before actually reading the poetry, because the art is so fascinating. It’s not to say the layout is distracting, the sheet music, photographs, and enormous words aren’t filler, they’re a part of each piece, they intertwine to create something more than a static poem.
The title of the piece “How to Not Stay Unshot in the U.S.A.” shows up in relatively small letters, while the body of the poem fills every inch of the page with a list of the violent ways people die every day in America. The list is as absurd as it is long and heartbreaking
… Break up with someone, Have a family, Be alone …
and the way it’s presented makes it all seem very matter of fact, with none of the reasons taking precedence over another, and yet it fills two full pages with the list, hammering home the tragedy.
The term multimedia might suggest a website or a program in the tech world, rather than a synthesis of ideas, methods, and art pieces in a paperback book. But this book explains it in the best possible terms. It shows us what a blend of formats and ideas can look like. Bashir has created a wild, chaotic collection that shows off by going in a million directions at once, shouting and whispering exponentially, all the while staring you in the eye to make sure you’re paying attention.
I Hope This Helps, by Samiya Bashir. Brooklyn, New York: Nightboat Books, May 2025. 144 pages. $18.95, paper.
Matt Betts is a poet and novelist who draws from pop culture and mythology. He is the author of the collections Underwater Fistfight, I Was Never Here: Poetry for Cryptids, and See No Evil, Say No Evil. His work has appeared in Sublimation, A Thousand Faces, Kaleidotrope, and others. Whether writing about Deathbots, cryptids, or zombie Shakespeare, his work often explores the strange and the sublime with a wink and a gut punch.
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