In Conversation With Author Mansoor Iqbal Attar, author of We Have A Choice

Q How did you come up with the title of your book? To be honest, I didn't set out to write a book about choice.

I thought I was writing about faith.

Then I thought I was writing about healing.

Then relationships.

Then identity.

Then the strange ways we hurt ourselves and each other.

But as the manuscript grew, I noticed something. Every poem eventually arrived at the same place.

A crossroads.

The Museum of Dreams asks what we do with the dreams we postpone.

Give Us Roses Now asks whether we express love while people are still here to receive it.

The Interview of Wounds asks whether we choose understanding or ego.

A Thousand Unfinished Sentences asks whether we continue cycles of hatred or choose mercy.

Different poems.

Different subjects.

Yet all of them quietly revolved around the same question: When life places us between what is easy and what is right, what do we choose?

That's when I realised the title wasn't something I needed to create.

It had already been written throughout the book.

We Have A Choice. Q What inspired you to write this book? My first book, Let It Fly, was written from a place of expression.

This book was written from a place of reflection.

Over time, I became less interested in telling people what I felt and more interested in understanding why we feel what we feel.

The experiences that shaped me most were the ones that challenged what I thought I knew.

There were periods where life looked very different from what I had imagined. Plans changed. People changed. I changed.

During those seasons, I found myself asking questions I never had to ask before. Questions about faith, identity, purpose, relationships, forgiveness, and what truly matters when life becomes uncertain.

Looking back, I think those questions inspired this book.

Some poems came from pain.

Some came from observation.

Some came from conversations.

Some came from silence.

The more I wrote, the more I realised that every person carries a story, a wound, a belief, a dream, or a question that shapes how they move through the world.

This book is my attempt to explore those things honestly. Q Among all themes and topics, why did you choose this one in particular? I don't think I ever sat down and decided to write about these themes. The more I wrote, the more I noticed that certain ideas kept finding their way into the poems.

I once read that words have territories of their own. A doctor and a police officer can witness the same event and describe it completely differently because they live in different worlds of language.

I think something similar happened while writing this book.

No matter where a poem began, it often wandered into questions about human behaviour, relationships, belief, regret, longing, memory, or the gap between who we are and who we pretend to be.

After a while, I stopped asking why these themes kept appearing and started listening to what they were trying to tell me.

Looking back, it feels less like I chose the topics and more like they kept showing up at my door until I finally wrote them down. Q What personal experiences have shaped your writing the most? More than any single event, I think my writing has been shaped by paying attention.

I've always been interested in the things people don't say as much as the things they do.

The pause before an answer.

The change in someone's tone.

The dream someone quietly gave up on.

The apology that arrived too late.

The conversations people have with themselves when nobody is listening.

Part of that perspective comes from the people I grew up around.

My grandfather was a freedom fighter, and growing up, I often heard stories about the sacrifices he made for something greater than himself. Later, I watched my father dedicate his time to social work and helping people who expected nothing in return.

I don't think those experiences directly taught me how to write, but they taught me to notice people, their struggles, their dignity, and the quiet impact one life can have on another.

Over the years, I've realised that every person is carrying an invisible story. Sometimes we hide it from others. Sometimes we hide it from ourselves.

Many of my poems began by noticing those small human moments and wondering what was happening beneath the surface.

Of course, my own experiences have shaped my perspective too, but observation has probably been my greatest teacher.

The more I paid attention, the more I realised that people are often fighting battles, carrying hopes, and asking questions that the world never gets to see. Q What does being a published author mean to you, beyond seeing your words in print? Honestly, it means very little if the words don't help someone.

Publishing a book is exciting, but knowing that a stranger somewhere in the world read a poem and felt seen, understood, or a little less alone means much more to me.

For me, success isn't measured by copies sold.

It's creating something honest enough that another human being can recognise a part of themselves in it.

I also understand that this may not be an easy book for everyone to connect with immediately. Even while writing it, there were poems I had to sit with for a long time before I understood what they were trying to say.

Some readers may simply read the words.

Others may recognise pieces of their own journey within them.

The poems are layered, and I think life itself is layered. We often understand certain things differently depending on where we are in our own story.

One thing I can say with certainty is that every word in this book was written sincerely.

I never set out to write traditional poetry or follow a particular style. Sometimes the writing arrived as poetry, sometimes as prose, sometimes as a conversation, and sometimes as a thought that refused to leave me alone until I wrote it down.

Above all, every praise belongs to Allah. Whatever ability I have to observe, reflect, articulate, or connect ideas through words is a gift from Him. I am simply grateful to have been entrusted with it.

If a poem stays with someone long after they have closed the book, then I feel I have done my job as a writer Q What can we, as readers expect from this book? I think every reader will meet a different book.

Some may find comfort in it.

Some may find questions they have been avoiding.

Some may recognise a younger version of themselves in its pages.

Others may find words for feelings they have struggled to explain.

This is not a book that asks to be rushed through. It asks to be sat with.

There are poems about dreams we postpone, conversations we never have, wounds we carry, masks we wear, people we miss, beliefs we question, and moments that quietly shape who we become.

At times, the book may feel like a conversation.

At times, like a mirror.

At times like a companion during a difficult season.

More than anything, I hope readers find something real within its pages, because the book was written from a very human place, and for human beings trying to make sense of their own journey. Q How do you expect your readers to use this book optimally? I hope that readers find their own relationship with this book.

Some may read it from beginning to end. Others may open it to a random page and find exactly what they needed that day.

I believe books have a way of meeting us differently depending on where we are in life. A poem that means very little today might mean everything a year from now.

If I could suggest one thing, it would be this: don't read the book looking for answers. Read it looking for resonance.

Pause when something feels familiar.

Revisit the poems that stay in your mind.

Sit with the ones that challenge you.

Return to them when life gives them new meaning.

Some poems may speak to you immediately. Others may take time.

To me, that is one of the beautiful things about reading. The words remain the same, but we don't.

And sometimes, when we change, the book changes with us.