“What makes this work particularly impressive is how many of the concerns Ari faces are issues children encounter regardless of their gender identities. While Ari will particularly resonate with queer kids, their fears and secret joys are sure to speak volumes to any outsider or someone in need of a friend.”

-Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“This book should be on everyone’s shelf — religious and non-religious alike. It is a raw, passionate, gritty tale of not only these two men who chose different paths, and are still making choices, but also of the many people around them who make their own life decisions to love, hate, accept, kill, tolerate or repel them.” 

-Philadelphia Gay News

“What’s in a name? Plenty, as this clever and poignant tale makes clear.”

—Starred Kirkus Review

“Umbilical Cord’s poems have a lucent quality and a supple rhythm that carries their tenderness to a reader. In an instant, the poems can become as raw, as immediate as touch. This work begins in heat and heartbeat, as a relationship and a family come into being, and it reflects the intimacies, anxieties, and devotions of love.  At once personally revealing and focused outward on the challenges that queer families face, in Umbilical Cord love triumphs over intolerance, and the future, named “Malek,” is nurtured by two devoted fathers.” 

—Kaie Kellough, author of Dominoes at the Crossroads and Magnetic Equator

“Describing his journey as a gay man to parenthood via a surrogate who shares his spouse’s genetics, Namir is able to explode an annoying vestige of the illogic upon which the straight mainstream, with teary-eyed desperation, sometimes still tries to assert its exclusivity.”

– ​John Barton, Gertrude Press

“Umbilical Cord is a compilation of poems by Hasan Namir centring on deeply personal topics, including his homosexuality and fatherhood. Through his words, Namir delves into the profound emotions driven by surrogacy, parenthood, homophobia, and heteronormativity. He writes about his romantic relationship with his husband and his experiences of being an expectant parent (but not the gestational carrier) during pregnancy. He includes memories that tugged on his heartstrings in the early stages of raising a child, and the wishes and words of love he has for his new son. Umbilical Cord leaves readers emotionally charged and passionate about Namir’s hardships and triumphs.”

– ​Carly Smith, Cloud Lake Literary