For the Best, by Nia Mahmud

Poetry, chapbook, 24 pages, from Bottlecap Features. A landscape featuring coffee that’s only sometimes made the right way, ruptured pimples, and a burrow owl’s wormhole examines what it means to be told it’s all ‘for the best’. A phrase often offered as consolation in the aftermath of a big move, bad night out, or romantic rejection, it does little to soften any emotional blow. Both personal and relatable, these poems chronicle two years of hurting and healing in constant motion and competition with each other. In Nia Mahmud’s sophomore collection of poems, aches don’t disappear, they just change shape. From curt conversations to wordy prose poems, this chapbook explores what it’s like to look at a wound and not always know the cure. Nia Mahmud is a writer and always has been. Originally from South Florida and in her final year of undergraduate studies in Georgia, her first poetry collection titled a complete work in progress was released three years ago. Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Five Minutes, Pomona Valley Review, and elsewhere. When she was little (not so long ago), she would scribble in notebooks and promise herself that one day, she would publish her writing. Nia's favorite thing to do is fulfill this promise. Better than that, even, is the joy she finds in the process of writing itself. Instagram: @nia.m.writer Portfolio: https://niamahmud.wixsite.com/nia-mahmud/portfolio-1