Decipher the Smoke

<p>In her debut chapbook of poetry <em>Decipher the Smoke</em> Nora Gupta scratch[es] through the pretty pink the hot pink the girly-girl pink universe to reveal the true indiscernible colors of girlhood. The browned bulb of childhood. The way bodies slither under white LED gas station lights into self-discovery. Through these poems Gupta asks her reader to reckon with-and perhaps even decipher-the thinning line between girlhood and grief one often stepped right over without second thought. Indeed while reckoning with the simultaneous devastating loss of a close family member and realization of her own impending womanhood Gupta navigates a world of escalation and apocalypse to uncover what-shade by shade-girlhood truly means to her.</p>