Summary

Kaur’s third chapter of poetry, “rooting,” begins with the poem “immigrant,” in which Kaur says some people “have no idea what it is like… to have your entire life / split between two lands” (119). In “refugee camp,” Kaur addresses refugees, saying they are “an open wound,” and “we are standing / in a pool of your blood” (121). Kaur then reflects on her mother, who taught her that “you need to be vulnerable to live fully” (122). Kaur reveals that her mother misses her original country, for she watches “foreign films” and searches through “the international food aisle” (123).

Kaur dedicates her next poem to a woman named Amrik Singh, who was forced to marry a man she did not know a year after her brother died. Kaur’s next poem, “boat,” describes an immigrant’s experience of leaving his / her home country. The immigrant realizes that “drowning...