I first met Ilisha Thiru Purcell when we were both Young Creative Associates with New Writing North in 2023, and it was there that I first heard about her project: a poetry collection where she reimagines the ancient Tamil poetry practice of Thinnai - in which a complete poetical landscape is created - within the North East. To finally get the chance not just to read it but to hear Ilisha speak about it was absolutely worth the wait!

After a gorgeously lyrical reading from Mymona Bibi that had me closing my eyes so I could just absorb her words and powerful poems from Ilisha’s mentor Shash Trevett, Ilisha read a handful of the poems from her debut collection, What She Said. Each poem is a snapshot of a life, speaking to themes of gender, violence, climate change and race, and Ilisha explained that the fragmentary nature of the collection means that a reader can choose to read it as different snapshots from one person’s life or as many different people’s lives. It’s definitely a collection that begs to be reread again and again in a new order each time, a different experience depending on what you as the reader bring to the piece.

It’s through the careful arrangement of the poems - numbered, but not placed in numerical order - that Ilisha is able to speak about trauma in a way that she says felt true to her, resisting the ‘trauma to triumph’ narrative that can so often be forced upon a piece of work. Instead, the reader is able to breathe in the poems in whatever order they choose, leaving the narrative up to them. She places you firmly within the lively, melodic landscape and holds you there, allowing you to feel it bodily in a way that is breathtakingly unique.

If you are someone who feels a deep connection with the North East landscape, I would encourage you to bask in the poems of What She Said, where familiar places bear benevolent witness and the land itself grasps at justice in a way that humans cannot. From the shoe tree in Heaton Park to the sculpted body of Northumberlandia to the bustle of Great North Road, you will experience home in a bold new light.

Leanna Thomson