Black Hollyhock, Atoosa Grey’s first poetry collection, faithfully adheres to its title. While voluptuously organic, it also contains a dolorous underside. Grey’s image-driven poems, imbued with symbolism, navigate territories within territories -- those of language, identity, motherhood and the body. She deftly renders a world nuanced with languid musicality and replete with questions. She asks us to consider the currency of words, to find the sublime in the mundane, and to recognize the inevitability of rebirth and resurrection throughout our lives: “The body has its own way of dying / again / and again.”