Carefully guarded borders

"Carefully Guarded Borders" is a collection of poetry that focuses on the experiences of individuals often seen as other--deviant women, gender transgressors, and immigrants. The poems, along with the critical introduction, present a challenge to linear trajectories of poetic descent by offering openness of interpretation, as well as openness of form. The collection is arranged associatively, and its thematic threads recur rhizomatically. Although at its inception "Carefully Guarded Borders" was a biographical account of the migration from Tajikistan to the United States, at the time of the manuscript's completion, this theme was subverted by cross-currents; the finished work questions borders at the same time as it reinforces their necessity in defining openness.