The New Stateman reviews poet Nuar Alsadir.

Only gradually do patterns emerge. About halfway through, she cites Heidegger’s idea of “a hammer seizing its actuality, revealing its form, only when broken”, and wonders: what if the same applies to human subjectivity? Can we, too, only seize our actuality when broken? If so, Alsadir is caught in a paradox, since she is a mother and a psychoanalyst with an interest in Lacan.