~ Aristilde Kirby, author of Daisy & Catherine² (Auric Press, 2022)

“Temperance Aghamohammadi's Behnt bears the torch of grief in inter & intrapersonal inquest of a spirit's dépense & reinvention; it sheds light on converting life's excess exhausts to welded bespoke breath-lace on the mind's glass. It wears the snug torc of desire in a major Locrian à la mode with flair. Aghamohammadi's character portraits & world-building are steampunkish & oneiric, akin to a flapper's spitcurls in cute, exact, but varied volutes. This is a text teeming with a satin seam, writ as a Canova-esque triad of Graces, melding subtle notes of Brenda Shaughnessy's storied arch, Joyce Mansour's germinal eroticism, & Remedios Varo's fluid & diaphanous sense of drapery. What more is there to get, really, than, well... Behnt. "

~ Dorothea Lasky, author of The Shining, Memory, Milk

Temperance Aghamohammadi’s Behnt is a lush, heartbreaking work of absolute otherworldly brilliance. When I first opened its pages, I knew I had to be close to it. To hold its words to my chest and cheek and let it seep in at its own fervent pace. That is how you will feel when you encounter these poems. They will ask you to be close to their gifts. To their “Blue hill fainted into blue field.” To their “blue face crumbling like ice.” These poems advance the horror of existence with sheer beauty and confront the limitations of elegy with actual elegy. They are an “Inoculation of Darkness/ An Infusion of Sight.” Aghamohammadi’s Behnt is as divine as a “Serpent prismatic from the ice-crusted moulin/ which would mill the world to dust.” Behnt opens us up with pain, with spirit, and with the weeping defiance of the I itself. It tells us that poetry is a “Night opened from the mouth of the world-wolf” after all. Listen, you must be grateful for the rare gem this book offers you. You must hold it to your heart and breathe in its burning and bloomy powers.”

~ CAConrad, author of First Light

An incredible collection weaving the ancient with the very next step in front of you. "There will be no After after this." Temperance Aghamohammadi has given us a true poetry page-turner! I highly recommend this brilliant new book, and look forward to telling everyone about it! 

Winner Of The 14th Annual New Delta Review Chapbook Contest
Selected By Dorothea Lasky 

$14.00

Temperance Aghamohammadi ✳ 2026

Behnt

5.5″ x 7″