In My Arms by Setareh Ebrahimi

Setareh Ebrahimi is an Iranian-British poet who lives and works in Faversham, Kent. In 2014, she completed her Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature at the University of Westminster, and went on to complete an MA in English and American Literature in 2016. Her work has been published numerous times in various journals, magazines, and anthologies. Setareh released her first pamphlet of poetry, In My Arms, from Bad Betty Press in 2018.

In My Arms is an incredible collection of poetry: twelve poems spread across twenty-six pages that are filled with a magnitude of feelings, experiences, and imagery. Ebrahimi gives the reader images in experience of love, mothers, boys, heartache, and more, all of which are flawed in some way. In ‘Meet the Mothers,’ particularly, there is an expression of divine femininity as some are “saving their boys” while others are “ruining them”—and that jars the image of anything divine. Setareh lays out images that are beautiful and layered with the gritty reality that lies awake in everyday life in modern society.

However, this collection is a journey and does not follow just one theme. It is a mixture of raw experience and that makes the beauty of this writing absolutely authentic. Ebrahimi explores more delicate imagery, and moments in life, in ‘Chest’ as “the depress between ribs is soft as bruised fruit” as the poetic voice “scale[s] the contours of this [a] pale landscape”.

In My Arms is mesmerising to read. The affluent imagery captures the reader, while the variety of theme makes the collection incredibly exciting. Each piece, however, has an underlying tone and set of imagery that add a real and raw edge to the poems. Ebrahimi is honest, open, and doesn’t hold back in this short collection of poetry—anyone would be mad not to read this.