When the World Breaks Open

Seema Reza is a poet and essayist based outside of Washington, DC, where she coordinates and facilitates a unique hospital arts program that encourages the use of the arts as a tool for narration, self-care and socialization among a military population struggling with emotional and physical injuries. An alumnus of VONA and Goddard College, she was awarded the 2015 Col John Gioia Patriot Award by USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore for her work with service members.

**A NewPages Book Stand Editor's Pick: June 2016“The author writes with self-lacerating honesty. . . . Blurring boundaries, Reza exercises literary license and often writes with poetic power.”—Kirkus Reviews“There are long tones of loneliness, self-discovery, and memory in Seema Reza’s lyrical memoir. . . . Her prose is smooth and blurred at the same time, like tears spilled on a manuscript page. The words are powerful enough to reach past the lines and gut-punch us. Abuse, selfishness, loss, all of it is hidden within her text, whether broken up in fluid experimental stanzas or rigid static prose. Like water, When the World Breaks Open takes on many forms and shapes to articulate Reza’s journey into adulthood while navigating motherhood at the same time. . . . It is her self-reflection which empowers this memoir; her responsibility to take action for herself and not to languish as she was. She asserts that 'in order to survive [your life] . . . [you] must learn to recognize [your] emotions' and the 'trauma that brought you here will not be the last one you face. Life will keep hitting you.' Reza seems determined to hit back.”—Entropy Literature Review