Opening My Soul Still A Virgin , Gulnar Ali Balata's third volume of poems, is like walking through a new door and finding a long lost lover, ravished by war and shredded dreams, longing for what was, hoping for goodness to come. This slender book is a tender rendering of poems wrapped in dew and thirst, fog and longing, rain and sorrow. Balata brings us an intimate gift of words infused with love for her tattered land of Iraqi Kurdistan. It ripples with sparkling rivers and her expectant heart, wrung with sadness, sings.

The poet is in exile in Boston, Massachusetts and like the night in her title poem in this volume, Picks up his broken pieces/ And what's left of his tears/ To seek new. She listens to birds chirping, seeks to hear the eternal song . She says she's become a pomegranate blossom in a land where there is no God… the land does not hear. Just the voice of the wind torn between the folds of the mountains.

Balata, with a full purse of friends, cards and pictures , evokes a wistful sadness like we may feel alone, weeping in a piney forest, or taking a deep breathe of mountain air on a misting day without sun. The unbearable becomes bearable as we inhale words exquisitely chosen and placed on the page. She, who is alienated and separated, is calling the Moon , is waiting for the morning star. And we believe these will come again as we did when, as children, our mothers whispered promises into our ears.

This volume is a sweet gift from a poet insisting on the resilience of the tattered human spirit's ability to rebirth itself. She is one of the foremost contemporary Kurdish women's voices. Listen to her spirit soar.