Anuja Varghese Reviews Farzana Doctor’s You Still Look the Same
Doctor, Farzana. You Still Look the Same. Freehand Books. $16.95, 96 pp ISBN: 9781990601057
A Review in Reflections
JANUARY 1ST
Variations of New year, new you! are injected ad nauseum into my social media feeds: discounts on personal training and diet apps; tips to combat dry skin, dry hair, depression, insomnia, and fatigue; articles I bookmark on how to be a better mother, better lover, better friend this year. I take stock of my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I make my resolutions and on this day, day one, I look to myself like someone who might keep them.
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Farzana Doctor’s new collection of poetry, You Still Look the Same, offers a series of reflections -- both of the external world, and of the world she sees within. Some poems take an almost detached, observational tone, while others plunge into the deeply personal, and through this interplay of observation and reflection, Doctor holds up a mirror to all that is frightening, lovely, funny and true about the decade of her forties. In “Stretch marks,” Doctor writes: “This middle age,/ skins marked/ by births and ink,/ sagging tits./ I wonder why stretch marks/ don’t make a body more supple.” In this poem, and several others, Doctor pairs a keen eye for exposing insecurities with a gentle questioning of whether the reflection we see tells the whole story about who we are.
FEBRUARY 1ST
Everything is frozen. I scroll listlessly through pictures of other people’s vacations, taking breaks to stretch my back, which goes stiff too easily now. I stand sideways in front of the full-length mirror, expressionless, and take what I imagine to be the worst possible picture of myself. I decide that this will be my before picture. I eat riced cauliflower instead of rice and imagine how different my after picture will be.
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Many of the poems in You Still Look the Same confront the way women’s bodies are seen, and also, the way women see themselves. In “Forty-three,” Doctor writes, “By the age of forty/ you’re supposed to have stopped caring/ what people think-/ that’s what Vogue says.” We see the speaker in “Forty-three” trying to transform – wearing the high heels and the short shorts, chasing down a sexier self; not wanting to care, but caring so very much. By the end of the poem, we see that a transformation has taken place, but an unexpected one: “One day, naked under hot shower/ I expand, rebound,/ flop onto double bed,/ starfish,/ take all the space.” Through accessible, incisive language, Doctor expertly navigates the emotional terrain of aging, self-doubt, and self-love with a sensitive touch.
MARCH 1ST
I am getting on an airplane for the first time in two years. I catch a glimpse of my face in an airport window and hear my mother’s voice in my head, warning against getting too much sun, drinking too much alcohol, spending too much money. But these pandemic years have been a strange, scarce time and I am hungry for too much. I tell her voice to be quiet, but I carry it with me anyway, onto the plane and into the sky.
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Midway though the collection, Doctor introduces a section called “A Khatna Suite.” Khatna refers to a form of female genital cutting practiced in the Dawoodi Bohra community, often supported or enforced by elder female relatives. Doctor is herself a khatna survivor and an activist in the fight to end the practice, and the poems in this section are a direct response to trauma inflicted by generations of grandmothers and mothers; to ongoing cycles of pain and shame and their ripple effects in women’s lives. In “Grandmothers,” Doctor writes, “Even if she doesn’t recall/ the afternoon of promised candy/ her body will remember,/ you will be named.” While most of the book takes a light, conversational tone, here we see a distinct shift, as the work is no longer speaking in measured tones, but screaming down the voices that would condone/explain/excuse away violence, demanding to be heard.
APRIL 1ST
My best friends are turning forty this year. We celebrate in big and small ways, toasting new adventures, new loves, new jobs, new hopes for whatever lies ahead. We crowd together into a hotel elevator and our reflection in its mirrored door is a trickster; whispering courage and confidence at one angle, reproach and regret at another. Each of us responds to what we see in different ways: either by leaning in or turning away; with books, with drugs, with hidden grey hair or very expensive shoes. This mid-life milestone looms ahead for me, and I don’t entirely know how to feel about it, but for tonight, my resolutions are forgotten and I choose to be gorgeous.
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Doctor closes the collection with a poem titled “Never alone” which encapsulates many of the book’s themes: the gifts and pitfalls of memory, the imprints left by desire and solitude, and the ways different stages of life force you to re-define relationships with other people, and with yourself. In its final reflections, “Never alone” offers:
“My bookshelf
holds mentors
every closet,
cupboard filled
with friends.
I am never alone.”
Full of hope, wisdom, and wry humour, You Still Look the Same is poetry that reads like memoir, where everyone can find a piece of themselves reflected back.
Anuja Varghese is a Pushcart-nominated writer based in Hamilton, Ontario. Her work appears in Hobart, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, Plenitude Magazine, THIS Magazine and others. Anuja serves as a board member for gritLIT, Hamilton’s literary festival, and also as Fiction Editor for The Puritan Magazine. She is currently pursuing a Creative Writing Certificate from the University of Toronto while working on an adult fantasy novel set in medieval India. Her debut short story collection will be released in spring 2023 with House of Anansi. Anuja can be found on Instagram (@anuja_v) and Twitter (@Anuja_V), or by visiting her website www.anujavarghese.com.