Inclined to Speak

A New Anthology of Arab American Poetry

Written by RAWI Webmaster

Mar 30, 2008 at 05:20 PM

Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry Edited by Hayan Charara (RAWI member) The most important Arab American poets of our time “Poetry’s work is the embodiment of individuality, to give form to the singular stuff of subjectivity. By speaking from the vantage of the personal, the poet lends specificity and depth to the collective, complicating the categories, making different lives real to readers. Hayan Charara’s rich anthology of Arab American poetry in this moment couldn’t be more timely; this book opens eyes, opens worlds.” —MARK DOTY, author of Fire: New and Selected Poems “Inclined to Speak is one of the most fruitfully diverse anthologies I have read in years, as its wealth of origins might lead one to expect. Here are poets in the high tradition of international Modernism, inheritors of Neruda, Hikmet, Celan, Ritsos and Darwish, who also deploy American poetry’s plural possibilities, drawing from the same sources as Stevens, Oppen, Rukeyser, Brooks, Ginsberg, Rich. Some of these poets can think and sing in more than one language: they all can think beyond monoglot frontiers.” —MARILYN HACKER, author of Essays on Departure: New and Selected Poems, 1980-2005 “Inclined to Speak, especially in this Time, Place & Condition, when most of “The Free World’s Foreign Policy” consists of Lies, Slander & Invasion is like Wolfbane when you hear the werewolf howling. It opens the door to a world breathing like our own, but adding dimensions that deepen our understanding of where we are and what time it is, that are immense, dreadful and wonderful.” —AMIRI BARAKA, author of Somebody Blew Up America and Others Poems “In Inclined to Speak, Hayan Charara has brought together some of the finest American poets who also draw on the powerful sense of what it means to be Arab-American in the twenty-first century. These poems are a kaleidoscope of stories, visions, memories that offer a kind of transcendence we so desperately need right now. This is a marvelous collection that gives readers room to breathe, to fly, to wonder and to cry.” —PERSIS KARIM, editor and contributing poet, Let me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora ABOUT THE BOOK At no other time in American history has our imagination been so engrossed with the Arab experience. An indispensable and historic volume, Inclined to Speak gathers together poems, from the most important contemporary Arab American poets, that shape and alter our understanding of the Arab American experience. Impressive in its scope, this book provides readers with an astonishing array of poetic sensibilities. Whether about culture, politics, loss, art, or language itself, the poems here engage these themes with originality, dignity, and an unyielding need not only to speak, but also to be heard. Here are thirty-nine poets offering up 160 poems. Included in the anthology are Naomi Shihab Nye, Samuel Hazo, D.H. Melhem, Lawrence Joseph, Khaled Mattawa, Mohja Kahf, Matthew Shenodah, Kazim Ali, Nuar Alsadir, Fady Joudah, and Suheir Hammad. Charara has written a lengthy introduction about the state of Arab American poetry in the country today and short biographies of the poets and provided an extensive list of further readings. Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry 6 x 9, 328 pages $24.95 paper ISBN 978-1-55728-867-7 / 1-55728-867-4 $59.95 cloth ISBN 978-1-55728-866-0 / 1-55728-866-6 ABOUT THE EDITOR Born in Detroit, Michigan, to immigrant parents, Hayan Charara studied English at Wayne State University in Detroit, cultural theory at New York University, and literature at the University of Houston. Widely published in journals and anthologies, including American Poetry: The Next Generation and Present/Tense: Poets in the World, and Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, he is the author of two collections of poetry, The Alchemist’s Diary and The Sadness of Others, which was nominated for the National Book Award in 2006. He has taught at colleges and universities for more than ten years and currently lives in Texas, where he is also a woodworker. FROM THE ANTHOLOGY Morning Ritual By Fady Joudah Every morning, after the roosters Crow back whatever prayers were passed Down to them that dawn From the keeper of their order up in heaven, I drink my coffee To the sound of squealing pigs Being bled to death In the market up the road—the same market Where I buy my fresh bread For my peanut butter and jam. The pigs Are bled through an armpit wound. You can see it coming throughout the day before, Hogs tied sideways to the backs of bicycles, Tight as a spine, going as far as the border Where the price is right. You will pass them On the asphalt to the town I get The peanut butter and jam from. They know The bikeways out of nowhere And suddenly they’re alongside your jeep. I lie: only goats are taken to the border. The goats are bled differently, And skinning is harmless after slaughter: All you do is a vertical skin-slit Between the shinbone and Achilles’ tendon, Stick a thin metal rod Through it, up the thigh, pull it out Then blow, mouth to hole, Until your breath dehisces Fascia and dermis, reaching the belly: Your hands Should even out the trapped air. Between blowing and tapping The animal is tight as a drum. Now the knife that slit the throat. Who knows What you’ll need skin for.

Last Updated ( Mar 30, 2008 at 05:25 PM )