“In this understated but affecting set of poems, Bohm masterfully connects natural landscapes with human interactions, using bodies of water as a metaphor for the fluidity of relationships… An enjoyable set of works that, at its best, finds connections between nature and human sociability.” — Kirkus Reviews
Full Kirkus review here
Selected by Kirkus Indie editors for inclusion in the May 1, 2026 issue of Kirkus Reviews
NEW! In a Language Not Your Own—Portugal-inspired English-language poems by Sonja N. Bohm, shaped by an encounter with the Lisbon landscape and drawn from bilingual work composed simultaneously in English and Portuguese during the author’s introduction to the Portuguese language.
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In a Language Not Your Own by Sonja N. Bohm addresses distance, memory, uncertainty, hope, the sea, a country, and a beloved who remains beyond reach. Yet its true subject is more subtle: the search for meaning in absence and the mysterious ways in which presence survives within it. Written from the perspective of a foreigner who came to Portugal and fell deeply under its spell, the book transforms coastlines, gardens, estuaries, birds, and the succession of the seasons into a landscape of encounter.
The sea dominates the collection. At times it represents longing, at times consolation, at times fear and doubt. Above all, it represents relationship: "And we are like these waters: bodies separated only by convention, if not by God." This impulse toward connection runs throughout the book. Separation is acknowledged, but rarely accepted as final. Again and again, Bohm asks whether presence can persist within absence; whether what appears divided may remain mysteriously united; whether relationship runs deeper than separation; whether meaning emerges not despite paradox, but through a kind of paradoxical communion.
The beloved occupies a central place in this exploration. Yet what the poems seek is not possession, but communion. Human encounters do not simply end when physical proximity ends. They continue through memory, imagination, reflection, and creative response. In "Everything," Bohm writes: "When I am near the waters, they are all that I see; when I am away from the waters, I see them in everything." The sea is absent. The sea is present. The paradox is not resolved; it is inhabited.
Ultimately, In a Language Not Your Own is a meditation on encounter, meaning, and the traces people leave within one another. Its deepest question is not how to overcome absence, but whether absence itself contains a deeper presence—revealed through love, memory, beauty, faith, and the enduring, unifying bonds that persist between persons, places, and God.
Sonja N. Bohm is author of bilingual poems written side-by-side in Portuguese and English and inspired by Portugal. Conceived in English, and crafted to be read in Portuguese, these poems are the fruit of a journey of learning and loving the Portuguese language. In Poemas do Jardim (Poems from the Garden), the Garden represents an Ideal—a thing not to be fully realized or attained in this life, but no less real or conceivable. The Garden is Portugal. Banco Vazio Poesia (Empty Bench Poetry) is the continuation of a love affair with words: poems written upon Bohm's return to the United States. Pera e Pedra (Pear and Stone) explores the complexities of a human heart as it navigates the ebb and flow of a sea of emotions; a heart marked by passion and devotion, and tested by separation and longing. Pobre Ícaro (Poor Icarus) is dedicated to those who dare to dream and grow in enigmatic soil, preparing for a harvest never promised. Available in paperback at online bookstores. Thanks for visiting!
"Life has only one expression, the one where the rooster crows, the one where you listen to it, moved, knowing the night cannot contain it." —Eugénio de Andrade
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