the blades of grass are dreaming
There was a point while reading Hollay Ghadery’s most recent volume of poetry, “the blades of grass are dreaming,” when I set the chapbook-feel of the text face-down beside a smoking fire. The covers, spread open and contrasting crimson against a November slate-grey scenery, lighted the thought, “I want to hang this on a wall.”
With cover art by Louis Charles Ruotte, the floral design of both front and back covers opens into one picture with a carmine opium flower consuming the centre. The vibrant flower sketch is creeping with indigo Canterbury Bells, green veined leaves and the papery petals of a pale pink peony. I wondered, how will this text connect with the cover? Consisting of 7 poems and published by Anstruther Press in November 2025, “the blades of grass are dreaming” is a slim volume with powerful minimalist lines.
When I first encountered Hollay Ghadery’s creative writing in "Widow Fantasies," I was immediately struck by how sharply intimate her 33 flash fiction pieces were, moving deftly through women’s inner lives, moments of connection, and the quiet gravity of intimacy. What hooked me most was how deeply Ghadery inhabited private emotional spaces, how her characters orbited one another, searching for understanding, often revealing themselves in the briefest, most vulnerable instances. I was drawn to the precision of her language and the vivid, tactile imagery that gave each piece momentum despite its brevity. The short form did not limit the work, instead it intensified it, mirroring the way attention, desire, and reflection often occurred in fragments. For me, reviewing "Widow Fantasies" was memorable not only for its craft but for how it honoured small, interior moments as sites of real weight and meaning, which made me anticipate that "even the blades of grass are dreaming" would offer a similarly attentive, emotionally rich exploration of human experience and the intimate details that illuminate it.
Hollay Ghadery is an award‑winning Iranian‑Canadian writer working across multiple genres, currently living in rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph, and her writing, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, has appeared in literary journals such as "The Malahat Review," "The Fiddlehead," and "Grain," among others. "Fuse," her memoir exploring mixed‑race identity and mental illness, was published in 2021 by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint and received the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. She released her debut poetry collection, "Rebellion Box," with Radiant Press in April 2023, whose title poem won "The New Quarterly"’s Occasional Verse Award in 2022. Her short‑fiction collection, "Widow Fantasies," was published by Gordon Hill Press in 2024, and her debut novel, "The Unravelling of Ou," is set to be released by Palimpsest Press in February 2026. She also has a forthcoming children’s book, "Being with the Birds," slated for publication by Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay hosts on The New Books Network and co‑hosts "HOWL," a literary arts show on 89.5 CIUT FM. She is a book publicist, the Regional Chair and BIPOC Committee co‑chair of The League of Canadian Poets, and serves as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township.
I collided with the image of the poppy plant in the poem, “Remembrance Day 2024.” Ghadery’s graceful yet firm grasp on the reality of parenting and the coming-of-age of children, their gleaning independence coupled with our learning to let go, coalesces for the poet at a Remembrance Day ceremony. “The past is choked/ with poppied fields, crumbling/ walls,” we confront stereotypes of cultural memory and ceremony, essentially garnering a hope “that/ the horizon/ will always bend/ around our children.” A powerful final line, we know that the horizon will not bend, the question is, do we bend or break?
I connected with the image in “Harvey turns 7,” with “each seal-clapped celebration a marker of time every first/ a last.” We do that, don’t we? That ‘seal-clap’ of acknowledgement and validation. Yes, we have seen that and we are celebrating you. The epitome of parenthood. But, Ghadery shows me further what parenthood can feel like, especially as children age and crest into independence, “a page curling at the edges.” A page curling, yet, not a branch breaking.
Which leads us into a subtle and poignant crescendo of the collection. During her son’s Grade 8 Graduation Dance, he contacts her, “Can you get me early?” The poet had a moment of quiet recollection, “I thought:/ let him have this/ this/ marvellous now.” We learn to give space. We are trying to teach ourselves how to let go, to not suffocate, or nag. But, the young graduate got in the vehicle, his words cutting through, wisely, almost beyond his years: “There’s nothing/ to keep me there.” The poem turns over and ends with “and the blades of grass/ are dreaming.” Hinged to the title of the entire work, this gentle moment of coming-of-age stopped me and drew me in.
The application of personification and metaphor rooted me into the microscopic. Blades of grass are taken for granted mostly, overlooked, but awareness permeates this poetic landscape, intention becomes active and the blades, carved out in individuality rather than perceived as collective, only, becomes a participant of the intrinsic. The setting is ignited, alive and not a passive backdrop.
The action of the grass, dreaming, signals an existence of memory, desire and anticipation. The grass contains capacity and the grass is acknowledged. The land is not used, it’s thinking. Anything that dreams, deserves respect.
Thank you to Hollay Ghadery, Anstruther Press and River Street Writing for a complimentary copy in request for an honest review.
