A moving collection of poetry about navigating mid-life, full of humour and wit, from acclaimed novelist Farzana Doctor.

This debut poetry collection from acclaimed novelist Farzana Doctor is both an intimate deep dive and a humorous glance at the tumultuous decade of her forties. Through crisp and vivid language, Doctor explores mid-life breakups and dating, female genital cutting, imprints of racism and misogyny, and the oddness of sex and love, and urges us to take a second look at the ways in which human relationships are never what we expect them to be.

Farzana Doctor is a Toronto-based Registered Social Worker who has been working with individuals and couples since 1993. As an activist, educator and writer, she has taught clinicians, co-written manuals for mental health providers and contributed chapters and articles about 2SLGBTQ+ issues, anti-oppression, self-care and female genital mutilation/cutting. She is the co-founder of WeSpeakOut and the End FGM Canada Network. She has written four critically acclaimed novels and a poetry collection.

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“These poems are clean, tight, wry, luscious, kvetchy and up-close-to-brown-skin.” — Sonnet L’Abbé, author of Sonnet’s Shakespeare

“In this collection, love, disappointment and possibility collide, at home and unhomed in spare, precise language.” — Larissa Lai, author of Iron Goddess of Mercy

“These poems travel across a range of experiences, but what pulls them together is the essential yearning for connection — in defiance of pain and grief, in spite of anger, fear, exclusion and sheer human blundering. The voices here are vulnerable, imperfect, but they are bolstered by their wry wit and an irrepressible desire to embrace life and love with all its complications.” — Adam Sol, author of How a Poem Moves

“Farzana Doctor’s You Still Look The Same unfolds in filmic moments which cluster with insight, itches like the discomfort of a hard news story, yet reads with all the intimacy of confessional memoir. This is a book of observation from a keen eye for what it means to be human in the 21st century. Here is a book that invites us to see with fresh perspective what we might yet be.” — Michael V. Smith, author of Bad Ideas

“This book is a tender tour of the love, loss, and lament that comes with the messiness of living.” — Dena Igusti, author of Cut Woman