Displaying 1 of 1 2021 Format: Book Author: Akbar, Kaveh, author. Title: Pilgrim bell : poems / Kaveh Akbar. Publisher, Date: Minneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press, [2021] Description: 76 pages ; 23 cm Subjects: Faith -- Poetry. American poetry -- Iranian American authors. Genre: Poetry. Other Title: Poems. Selections Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Library Journal Prepub Alert, 050121, p. 26 Library Journal, 060121, p. 117 Publisher's Weekly,062121 LCCN: 2020944177 ISBN: 9781644450598 Other Number: 1182587367 System Availability: 1 # Local items: 1 Call Number: 811.6 Akbar Pilgrim # Local items in: 1 # System items in: 1 Current Holds: 0 Place Request Add to My List Expand All | Collapse All Where is it? Suggestions and more Large Cover Image Trade Reviews Library Journal ReviewBidart, whose multiple awards include a Pulitzer, tops off five decades of writing with a book arguing Against Silence in its embrace of the world.Publishers Weekly ReviewIn this rich and moving collection, Akbar (Calling a Wolf a Wolf) writes poems of contradiction and ambivalence centered on religious belief and ethnic and national identity. Evocative and polyphonic, surprising but never artificially shocking, Akbar's poems flit from the divine to the corporeal in the same breath. In "Vines": "when I saw God/ I trembled like a man"--and a few lines later, "I live like a widow// every day a heave of knitting patterns and sex toys." In "The Miracle," the poet confesses to himself: "Gabriel isn't coming for you. If he did/ would you call him Jibril, or Gabriel like you/ are here? Who is this even for?" Within that question lies a tension between cultures, religions, loyalties, and ways of being in and looking at the world. As an Iranian-born American, Akbar does not feel that either of these nationalities can fully encompass his identity. "Some nights I force/ my brain to dream me/ Persian by listening/ to old home movies/ as I fall asleep," he explains. This impressive, thoughtful work shimmers with inventive syntax and spiritual profundity. (Aug.)Booklist ReviewThis incandescent second collection of poetry from Akbar, following Calling a Wolf a Wolf (2017), illuminates questions of divinity and language in swift, surprising lyrics. An Iranian-born writer of unmatched imagery and searing critique, Akbar uses plainspoken language ("Somewhere a man is steering a robotic plane into murder") and otherworldly imagining ("Heaven / is all preposition--above, among, around, within") to collide our world and the next. "In the Language of Mammon" references a biblical term for material wealth and satirizes poets' relationships to money: "Behold the poet, God's / incarnate spit in the mud, / chirping like lice in a fire." The poem is printed in mirrored script, rendering it almost impossible to read. Another inventive poem, "Palace Mosque, Frozen," is arranged as a square within a square, doubly depicting the supplicants' experience: "bright dust / pillowed floor / we see our prayers / as we say them." Akbar names several inspiring Persian and Iranian poets, such as Hafez and Forugh Farrokhzad, and his obvious skill and subtle flirtation with self-deprecation will surely endear readers to this volume's exceptional speakers. Summary Kaveh Akbar's exquisite, highly anticipated follow-up to Calling a Wolf a Wolf With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar's second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity where artifacts of self and belonging have been shed. How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? And if living justly in a nation that would see them erased is, too, a kind of self-destruction, what does one do with the body's question, " what now shall I repair? " Here, Akbar responds with prayer as an act of devotion to dissonance--the infinite void of a loved one's absence, the indulgence of austerity, making a life as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation--teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness. Richly crafted and generous, Pilgrim Bell 's linguistic rigor is tuned to the register of this moment and any moment. As the swinging soul crashes into its limits, against the atrocities of the American empire, and through a profoundly human capacity for cruelty and grace, these brilliant poems dare to exist in the empty space where song lives--resonant, revelatory, and holy. Table of Contents Pilgrim Bellp. 5Vinesp. 6The Miraclep. 7Ghazal for the Men I Once Wasp. 9Reza's Restaurant, Chicago, 1997p. 10There Are 7,000 Living Languagesp. 12The Value of Fearp. 15Mothers I Once Wasp. 17Pilgrim Bellp. 18I Wouldn't Even Know What to Do with a Third Chancep. 19Pilgrim Bellp. 23My Empirep. 24In the Language of Mammonp. 26My Father's Accentp. 27There Is No Such Thing as an Accident of the Spiritp. 29Forfeiting My Mystiquep. 30Cotton Candyp. 34Against the Parts of Me That Think They Know Anythingp. 36Pilgrim Bellp. 37Seven Years Soberp. 38Pilgrim Bellp. 41An Oversightp. 42Ultrasoundp. 43Palace Mosque, Frozenp. 45How Prayer Worksp. 46How to Say the Impossible Thingp. 47Shadian Incidentp. 48Despite My Efforts Even My Prayers Have Turned into Threatsp. 49Escape to the Palacep. 51Ghazal for a National Emergencyp. 52Reading Farrokhzad in a Pandemicp. 53Famous Americans and Why They Were Wrongp. 56Pilgrim Bellp. 57Against Memoryp. 58The Palacep. 63Notesp. 73 Librarian's View Series Information Similar Titles Similar Series Summary Reader Reviews Displaying 1 of 1