In Boiled Owls, Azad Ashim Sharma delves into the kaleidoscopic terrain of cocaine addiction to explore the strain it puts on his speaker’s interior, as well as family and those in close proximity. With frenetic language finely calibrated, sitting somewhere between impulse and philosophy, Boiled Owls resists common and fanciful depictions, instead turning its camera onto the spaces addiction arises from, along with the turmoil it can so often bring. Sharma’s project is not interested in stylising its subject, nor presenting it through the lens of pity. This is a collection of poetry which moves between centre stage and the fringes of addiction, never failing to ignore the nexus between mania and the road to sobriety.