In her debut chapbook of poetry, Decipher the Smoke, Nora Gupta โscratch[es] through the pretty pink, the hot pink, the girly-girl pink universeโ to reveal the true, indiscernible colors of girlhood. The browned bulb of childhood. The way bodies slither under white LED gas station lights into self-discovery. Through these poems, Gupta asks her reader to reckon withโand perhaps even decipherโthe thinning lin ...Full description
In her debut chapbook of poetry, Decipher the Smoke, Nora Gupta โscratch[es] through the pretty pink, the hot pink, the girly-girl pink universeโ to reveal the true, indiscernible colors of girlhood. The browned bulb of childhood. The way bodies slither under white LED gas station lights into self-discovery. Through these poems, Gupta asks her reader to reckon withโand perhaps even decipherโthe thinning line between girlhood and grief, one often stepped right over without second thought. Indeed, while reckoning with the simultaneous devastating loss of a close family member and realization of her own impending womanhood, Gupta navigates a world of escalation and apocalypse to uncover whatโshade by shadeโgirlhood truly means to her.