Kintsugi [kin-tsoo-gee]

(noun) the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.

Ahmed Ayoub's debut poetry collection, Kintsugi Through a Kaleidoscope, is a lifelong journey of heavy reflections, thoughts, and experiences from the lens of a second-generation Egyptian-American Muslim. This book explores themes and emotions of longing, loneliness, regret, anger, sorrow, with progressively bigger imprints of hope for a better future and stronger sense of self. By choosing a Japanese-oriented title for this collection, Ahmed aims to convey the importance and beauty of a foreign cultural concept that people of a similar background can incorporate in their own lives.

This is an expression of authentic feelings and experiences in an increasingly curated society, touching on heavy experiences such as grief and depression, while interrogating the idea of hiding these very emotions even from ourselves. Regardless of your background, the poems in this book touch aspects of the human experience anyone can resonate with. Like the concept of kintsugi, people are just as beautiful because of their struggles and imperfections, rather than in spite of them.