Saturday Review: “The Stained Oroboros,” a review by Dustin Pickering of Kashiana Singh’s Witching Hour forthcoming in NCLR Online Fall 2025
Dustin Pickering reviews North Carolina Poetry Society President Kashiana Singh’s collection of poetry, Witching Hour. Singh’s book features poetry that explores the “cycles of birth and death.” Pickering notes that “The central metaphor is the making of the whole woman through rebirth. This poetic subject includes but is not limited to the thought of creation as a returning to oneself, and Singh explores birth and death as part of a universal creative process.” Singh’s poetry intersects the woman’s body with cosmic forces by considering “galaxy formation as part of the birthing process.” Pickering goes on to remark upon how Singh “compares the universe to a woman’s body.”
Singh’s book “is full of poems of joy and celebration” and it “reminds us of the human urge to create while allowing the freedom to decide to create, and even how to judge oneself in the act of creating.” Witching Hour is a multifaceted collection with poems pertaining to pregnancy and labor, motherhood, creativity, nature, and cosmic forces. Regardless of your gender or experiences with motherhood, Singh’s poems will resonate.
Read the entire review here, and buy a copy of Witching Hour from your favorite independent bookstore.
