The Siren In The Twelfth House

“Truthfully I can only tell you what’s missing” writes the heartbroken protagonist at the beginning of Victoria Mbabazi’s The Siren in the Twelfth House. But this isn’t a book that succumbs to grief. Mbabazi’s poems are siren songs, reclaiming love from pain, and rediscovering joy through the destruction and eventual rebuilding of astrological houses. Prepare to slow dance through this profound and powerful debut.

Praise for The Siren in the Twelfth House:

The Siren in the Twelfth House combines meta-allegory with a strident exploration of the vicissitudes of love and companionship. Its anthropomorphic signs bring the astrological into the quotidian, a logic to randomness of experience, and a symphony from the 12 orchestral sections of the skies. As we trace the transformation of the titular siren, we cannot help but have our own gazes and capacities for orphic interpretation sharpened as well.—Tolu Oloruntoba, The Junta of Happenstance, and Each One a Furnace

With a sweeping grace and theatrical, cinematic flare, Victoria Mbabazi writes us into the delicious tropes and archetypes of astrology—from the signs to the houses to the transits—with the careful, precise eye of a poet. Siren in the Twelfth House is bright with a familiar ancient fascination—what we have with the stars, with the sky and, most of all, with each other.—Sanna Wani, author of My Grief, the Sun