Análisis de diario de la biblioteca
Bidart, whose multiple awards include a Pulitzer, tops off five decades of writing with a book arguing Against Silence in its embrace of the world. |
Análisis semanal de editoriales
In 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.) |
Análisis de lista de libros
This 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. |