Starred review from May 15, 2008
In this important anthology, editor Charara, the author of two books of poetry (e.g., "The Alchemist's Diary"), draws a diverse map of Arab American poets. This carnival of voices ranges from expressions of political and social grievance, as in Charara's own "Usage""I was born here/ I didn't have to adopt America/but I adapted to it"to highly experimental efforts in language and imagery, as in Kazim Ali's "Gallery""Music is a scar unraveling itself in strings/an army of hungry notes shiver down the four strings' furrow." Here we have two views of poetry, the former seeing its language as informational and a means to something outside the poem and the latter seeing it as suggestive and a means to itself. Yet the dilemma of "I" and "the other," "here" and "there" is examined in most of the poems. It is worth noting that all the poems in the collection are written in English, which makes the term "Arab American" a categorical indicator rather than a literary one. Readers of this collection will experience the joy of discovery and awareness; recommended for all public and academic libraries.Sadiq Alkoriji, South Regional Lib., Broward Cty., FL
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 1, 2008
Make no assumptions. As with all double-named ethnicities, the designation Arab American encompasses people of dramatically diverse backgrounds with stories offamily, war, exile, lost languages, cherished traditions, forbidden love, and the art ofreinventing home and self. An Arab American is an immigrant or American-born;a Muslim, Christian, or Jew;a human being faced withnegative stereotypes, made worse in the wake of 9/11. Poet Charara has gathered 160 clarion poems by 39 Arab American poets (each briskly profiled) to create a potent and synergistic anthology that illuminates the slippery elements of identity. Familiar voicesNaomi Shihab Nye, Jack Marshall, and Lawrence Josephcombine with poets who though new to most readers will bequickly embraced, so direct, lithesome, and affecting are their poems about the solace of nature and the paradoxes of the human condition. Here are poems of Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Egypt, of New York, Detroit, and South Dakota. Born in a Palestinian refugee camp, Suheir Hammad reaches for the essence: youre either with life, or against it. / affirm life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)