Homebound

Humairah Jamil

Paperback, 138 pages

9789811843167

Homebound is the debut collection of poems by Humairah Jamil, a Singapore writer.

During the author's Umrah trip in 2016, she revisited Mecca and Medina where time unspooled to twenty years ago — a young girl, a sacred mosque under construction, a circumambulation of different skins, and a faith she's yet to fully know how to carry. It felt like a homecoming and a bag of longings with no place to go.

The poems in Homebound are inspired by her revisit to the holy lands and her life journey which she has written and compiled over the years. As she navigates her emotions of love, loss, and hope through words, she finds herself coming back to the journey of experiencing the fleeting nature of this life and gradually learning that we are all homebound. 

We are all moving. Growing. Going.

We are all coming home.

For this life is a map

and this beautiful faith

has shown me the way 

that always

leads me

back

to You 

Read Wardah's conversation with the author.