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Customer Reviews (8)

Amazing Again
After reading this book I was left with the "wow" feeling.Forche has done it once again!She is an amazing teacher, as well as a writer.

Best Poet in a Dark Time
Forche is really the best poet working in this country who's books you can find in the bookstores. Probably the book business people keep her around because they see her as some sort of activist writer with a political base. And that may be true. Still, what's good about her work is its personal honesty. And yada yada all those who blither on in their intellectual neediness. She just tries to tell us things that are difficult to tell. And she's not an intellectual snot, though she probably could be.

A bit disappointing
Technically, this volume is the work of a creative poetic master.Unfortunately, occasionally the craftsmanship shows through to the detriment of the message.I once took a poetry workshop led by Carolyn Forche.A piece of advice that has stuck with me was to read nature guides - learn the names of the plants, the clouds, ... In this volume, I am aware that the poet follows her own advice.Unfortunately, this causes an awareness in the reader of the poet's vocabulary in a distracting sense.

I recognize all the reasons reviewers are enchanted by this volume, but I rate it as a small misstep by a wonderful poet.

a book of stunning brilliance from this poet of witness
Carolyn Forche is one of the most memorable poets of her generation; her peculiar avant-garde poetry is of endless relevance & massive creative vision.I've already written another review of this book, but I'll have to keep making more notes in reviews as I come to understand it more.I won't understand it all.We live in an age of such chaos, & in this book Carolyn Forche responds to it how a body grows bones with forms of stern order.With the forms of these poems it seems to me that she's positing that underneath any modern chaos is a ruling order, from the long end-stopped lines at the beginning of the book, like the end-stopped lines at the historical beginnings of western poetry, to the 40+ pg single poem with all its lines arranged alphabetically.In a short poem the notes at the end of the book reveal to be about the contaminated land about Chernobyl, in the context of the motions of the whole book, she makes me feel as though perhaps while one can only surrender to change, what is manifest not lasting, this is not an impetus into disorder & what will come is new sense.

Anyways, Carolyn Forche is a wild poet.This incredible book is a very exciting creative advance from her earlier work.Metasticizing cities -- she moves like a platoon.

Forche Sets the Pace for her Generation Again
Forche's second book, THE COUNTRY BETWEEN US, elicited almost Pharisitical envy, a reaction that betrayed just how truncated and isolationist the aesthetics of American poetry had become. Her third book, ANGEL OF HISTORY is arguably THE WASTE LAND of the second half of the twentieth century. Never a mere rhetoritician of the political, Forche sets the pace for her generation of poets in her fourth book, demonstrating once again a fearless innovation of content and form. Carolyn Forche's fourth book, BLUE HOUR: POEMS, evokes that limnal state between the truth that is accessed in dreams and waking, when consciousness hovers in extreme receptivity between life and the death that is to come. Blue is the color of God in Orthodox iconography, the color, according to Maxim Gorky's grandmother, of her grandson's soul, and of the premonitory hour before dawn, with all of its connotations of enlightenment and illumination. It is in this new collection especially that one overhears the strains of a visionary's mystical apprehension, harvested from edge of extremity. In "On Earth," the forty-page abecederian hymn with its allusion to The Lord's Prayer ("Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"), Forche catalogs with photographic accuracy the life review of a soul neither able to go forward nor back, a consciousness suspended, as in a surgical theater, above the theater of human events, creating an elegiac commentary upon mankind's ability to create heaven on earth. Included in the volume are eight lyrics of startling beauty, as spectral and haunting as the body in x-rays, riddled with a light that either illuminates or casts a shadow upon our demise. I am reminded of those small and extremely heavy cones in Borges, made of a metal which does not exist in this world, images of divinity in certain religions in Tlon. These beautifully wrought shorter poems return the lyric to its specific gravity-epigrams of matter gleaned at the frontier of consciousness. In a culture where it would be easy for poetry to devolve into a merely anecdotal art, something on the order of California cuisine, Forche reminds us of Wallace Stevens' dictum: " Poetry is that which helps us live" or, as Adrianne Rich has said it: "Poetry is where the imagination's contraband physical and emotional imprintings are most concentrated, most portable." As such, we would do well to preserve in poetry that which is most essential to our humanity. In BLUE HOUR: POEMS, Forche restores poetry to its most sacred purpose and wholeness of being. For this alone, we should give thanks and applaud. ... Read more

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Placed in the context of twentieth-century moral disaster--war, genocide, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb--Forché's ambitions and compelling third collection of poems is a meditation of memory, specifically how memory survives the unimaginable. The poems reflect the effects of such experience: the lines, and often the images within them, are fragmented discordant. But read together, these lines, become a haunting mosaic of grief, evoking the necessary accommodations human beings make to survive what is unsurvivable. As poets have always done, Forché attempts to gibe voice to the unutterable, using language to keep memory alive, relive history, and link the past with the future. ... Read more

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The Angel of Poetry
Perhaps the Angel of History - witness to cruelty and misery, will join forces with the Angels of Poetry and, through a haunting mosaic of poetic beauty, will somehow discover an end to the horrible suffering and grief in our world.
Evocative of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, The Angel of Poetry is a plea to keep memory alive, to keep speaking for the dead. Forche has given us a purpose - as both readers and writers of poetry - a truly sacred task.

almost cruelly intelligent modern poetry
This book is just so brilliant.The poems are all terseness, & their lyric integrity & elliptical masonry demand very close attention of the reader.This is avant-garde poetry written by the fists of genius.

What's the fuss?
Bombastic, pretentious, and overblown.Also irrelevent.

THE ANGEL OF HISTORY IS NECESSARY
In the interstices of the times we are living in.A book of poetry like this demanded to be born, and Carolyn Forche was elected parent.Like all great art: political, personal.The epitome of intimacy provides the koan of the distance of being human. This may be the defining poetic book of thenineties, and the end of the century.It is certainly one of those books,and by a poet who doesn't cease to fulfill her "vocation" as poetwith great humanity and dignity.

a genius
This book is the work of a genius which demands to be read and reread timeand again. A heir to thetradition of Anna Akhmatova, Paul Celan andEdmond Jabes, Carolyn Forche is able to create a work that once read willnever be forgotten. This is not just the major book -- this is the verybest. If the Lord Almighty lives in our prayers, this poetry is preciselyhis own, clear speech. It is a crime not to read this book. ... Read more

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Beautiful, sensuous poetry
There is a richness to the poems in this first volume of poems written by Carolyn Forche - words lovingly woven into images and sounds that feel good in your mouth if read aloud. You simply want to taste them, bite into them, savouring their flavour and swallow, feeling them become you. Themes of ethnicity, of friends,lovers, family have underlying themes of displacement and the gathering together of the tribes. It is an important title - Gathering the Tribes - since it has a oneness without surrendering the individuality of one's ethnic group nor self. Very highly recommended.

Poetry of Displacement and Replacement
Forche's winning collection for the Yale Series of Younger Poets is filled with language (sometimes emotive, sometimes deliberately stark) about the displacement of culture, love, and harmony coupled with a replacement of belief, identity, and beauty.The poems in the collection show Forche's skill in the early (not beginning) stages of her craft.Mourning and celebration of identity in "The Morning Baking" and "What It Cost" link Forche's history with the burden of passing on those oral records."Burning the Tomato Worms," "This Is Their Fault," and "Taking Off My Clothes" demonstrate a confidence in sexuality also exhibited in such poets as Marge Piercy and Adrienne Rich.Even Forche's early lyricism in "Calling Down the Moose" and "Song Coming Toward Us" deserve attention.And no one can praise "Kalaloch" better than Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz in the introduction to Forche's manuscript: "In its boldness and innocence and tender, sensuous delight it may very well prove to be the outstanding Sapphic poem of an era."

Forché's first book lyrical but not self-involved
Forché's first book, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, has an implicit politicism, with poems about the political intrusions (Terrence Des Pres' term) that led to her grandparents' disclocations fromCzechoslovakia and Kiev, and her as-a-matter-of-course discovery of lovebetween women in "Kalaloch."Most poems here tend towards thepersonal lyric, decidedly unsolipsistic. The poet Stanley Kunitz, judge ofthat year's Yale Younger Series prize, introduces the collection. ... Read more

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The book opens with a series of poems about El Salvador, where ForchÉ worked as a journalist and was closely involved with the political struggle in that tortured country in the late 1970's. ForchÉ's other poems also tend to be personal, immediate, and moving. Perhaps the final effect of her poetry is the image of a sensitive, brave, and engaged young woman who has made her life a journey. She has already traveled to many places, as these poems indicate, but beyond that is the sense of someone who is, in Ignazio Silone's words, coming from far and going far.

Customer Reviews (6)

Timeless, contemporary classic
I first read this book in 1985, when I was a junior at UVA, where I was exposed to works of many excellent contemporary poets, many of whom seemed to be women.Along with Molly Peacock, Sharon Olds, and Mary Oliver, Carolyn Forche's The Country Between Us left a lasting impression on my psyche. Unlike most textbooks that I chucked when classes were done, this book and few others have traveled with me in my lifetime and has given me countless reading pleasures.To bear a witness and give voice to the voiceless without being overly sentimental or judgmental ... a must read contmporary classic.

Through a young woman's eyes: love and revolution
I finished Carolyn Forche's The Country Between Us which was simply amazing. I wish I had better words to describe her skill. Her poems are about reluctant revolutionary tendencies, interspersed with love/sex and seeking. There is probably a great deal I could say her about the strength of her work, but it just has to be read to be completely felt. If nothing else find the poem _The Colonel_ as an example of her ability to speak in a new way. One of my favorite books of poems this year.

read and reread
Stunning, deep, beautiful and nerve wracking.I've carried this book with me for weeks now, rereading poems and trying to memorize parts of them.There aren't enough stars in the sky to rate this book.

Forché sees evil & names it
Forché's poems of El Salvador in the late '70s/early '80s, in the first half of this book, could as well be written about Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Chechnya, or any of another dozen places that are sites of contemporaryatrocity.And the U.S.: where all of us, so many of us good people, yes,good people, live on the uppermost levels of a structure of corruption andshame, which we fail, in our stubborn blindness, to recognize: "...Igo mad, for example, / in the Safeway, at the many heads / of lettuce,papayas and sugar, pineapples / and coffee, especially the coffee"("Return," 19). Forché's purpose is not to give us the guilts,nor to turn us intoevolutionaries, nor to congratulate herself as someonewho is "aware," but to bring witness of objective conditions ofevil in which we, as American citizens and consumers, participate.

Riveting images described beautifully and yet so accurately.
The first book of contemporary poetry that I loved in its entirety.Forche's words describe the undescribable in ways that compel us to look at the unbelievable.A treasure. ... Read more

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This landmark anthology takes its impulse from the words of Bertolt Brecht: "In the dark times, will there be singing? /Yes, there will be singing./About the dark times." Bearing witness to extremity--whether of war, torture, exile, or repression--this volume encompasses more than 140 poets from five continents, a chorus of voices from dark times, giving testimony to the poetic imagination seared by the fire of human suffering. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Sadly poignant
Hard to read so much about suffering, so take this in small doses!The selection seems good, each poem has much merit to distinguish.The way it is divided makes it easy to delve into the human cost of events, so for students trying to gain some perspective on those things this is a very good way.

Got it fast...with a surprise
Came in beautiful condition, very promptly, and autographed by the editor!What a treat that was to discover!

One of my most treasured poetry anthologies
Forché has collected poems of "144 ... poets who endured conditions of historical and social extremity during the twentieth century -- through exile, state censorship, political persecution, house arrest, torture, imprisonment, military occupation, warfare, and assassination."

Unlike many anthologies, Forché provides a wonderful introduction, and short biographies of each poet. The poems are divided into sections based on when and where the poets experienced "their extremity" when they wrote; it can't be perfect, but Forché does a great job.

The first chapter begins with the genocide of the Armenians. But it really doesn't matter where one begins (or where one ends), or how the poets suffered: they all have eerily similar tales to tell.

Forché set three criteria: the poets must have personally endured conditions "in extremis" due to reasons noted above; they must be considered important to their national literatures; and their work, if not in English, must be available in a quality translation.

This is a very thick book (over 800 pages) but she limits each poet to not more than four or five poems, thus permitting 144 authors altogether. Forché notes that this published collection accounts for only a quarter of all she has collected. Some of the poems she has translated herself.

Here are the sections: the Armenian genocide (1909 - 1918); World War I (1914 - 1918); revolution and repression in the Soviet Union (1917 - 1991); World War II (1939 - 1945); the Holocaust, the Shoah (1933 - 1945); repression in eastern and central Europe (1945 - 1991); war and dictatorship in the Mediterranean (1900 - 1991); the Indo-Pakistani wars (1947 - 1972); war in the Middle East (1948 - 1991); repression and revolution in Latin America (1900 - 1991); the struggle for civil rights and civil liberties in the United States (1900 - 1991); war in Korea and Vietnam (1945 - 1979); repression in Africa and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa (1900 - 1991); and, revolutions and the struggle for democracy in China (1911 - 1991).

The authors include so many of whom I have never heard, but there are so many that I recognize that it makes me look forward to reading again: Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Own, e.e. cummings, Robert Graves, André Breton, Boris Pasternak, Joseph Brodsky, W. H. Auden, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, H. D., Bertolt Brecht, Stephen Spender, Dylan Thomas, Primo Levi.

I believe the author when she states she had no political agenda when taking on this project or when selecting these poems. I think she was simply overwhelmed by the human condition "in extremis" and realized it had to be collected for others to read.

Unlike the one reviewer who gave this one star, I did not find any evidence of politics and patriotism; quite the opposite. These were simply men and women who suffered and who were generous enough to capture it in poetry for future generations. For most, I am sure, poetry helped them survive....as long as they did. Some wrote their poetry while waiting to be assassinated by firing squads. It appears at least one wrote a few lines while still alive, but dying, on top of his comrades who had all been shot and were to be buried in a mass grave. That bit of poetry was found in his pocket when the body was exhumed decades later.

Although thick and heavy, it has a wonderful feel to it; nice paper and nice font. It is a bit heavy to be a carry-on but if it's your only book for a particular flight that will be fine.

A powerful, passionate and profound anthology.
The purposes of the anothology are stated in the title: Against Forgetting. Poetry of Witness. Forche confines the anthology to the century we have defined ourselves by - the XXth. Yet, the sections have explanations - material provided by Forche proving that already, this amnesia to the horrors of violence has been dooming us to repeat ourselves.

How better to transmit the lessons of culture, of the "political" and "patriotic" (along with their varying definitions) than through poetry?

The selections in this collection have been thoughtfully made and the translations are excellent. Without exception, we have a volume to force us to reflect, to ask ourselves difficult questions. We might not like our answers but perhaps we will have our own poems as well, and our poems will serve as an antidote to forgetting - perhaps they too, will bear witness should we not be able to.

Too political and patriotic
If you love political and patriotic poems, this book can be a good choice, but such themes are complete turn-off to me. This book comprised of the following chapters: The American genocide, World War I, Revolution and Repression in the Soviet Union, Spanish Civil War, World War II, The Haolocaust, Repression in Eastern and Central Europe, War and Dictatorship in the Demditerranean, War in the Middle East, Repression and Revolution in Latin America, The Struggle for Civil Rights and Civil Leberties in the US, War in Korea and Vietname, Repression in Africa, Revolution and the Struggle for Democracy in China.
I can hardly believe that these are poetries. These are simply political phrases disguised using poetry form. All the poems are so boring to appreciate. I find that it is much better to read the books relavant to each chapter. I regret that I wasted money and time on this book. In fact, I threw this book to trash. ... Read more

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Open City is a rare contemporary phenomenon: a literary journal that gets people talking about literature, with contributions from a dynamic mix of prominent writers, undiscovered aspirants, and lost treasures by writers from past eras. From Edvard Munch's journals to Terry Southern's screenplays to Rick Moody's poetry to Michael Cunningham's essays to Mary Gaitskill's short stories, Open City features an exciting range of talents, with an edgy style and wit not to be found in any other literary journal. Open City #17 features writing by Mark Jude Poirier, Chuck Kinder, C. K. Williams, Cynthia Weiner, Jack Fitzgerald, and many others, as well as artwork by Stu Mead, Bruno Schleinstein, Sophie Toulouse, and Christoph Heemann. ... Read more

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the "New" paris review
funky and astute might be appropriate adjectives to describe Open City mag., which is more than a literary portrait "of New York City and the city in general." with writing not merely urban(e) or cynical (consider the dense, nature-themed poetry of Rodney Jack and the quirky yet illuminating work of Catherine Bowman in #18), here is the intelligentsia--artful and heartfelt, in a format as original as the visions it collects. ... Read more

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A Love Song in the Back Pocket of a Martyr
"In the tradition of Darwish, young Palestinian women in the Diaspora are taking up the mantle of modern Palestinian poetry. Nathalie Handal, a "poet in violet solitude" riding "sailboats across the world's heart," beautifully describes the continuing agony of exile of her generation of refugees, who should "no longer be sheets flying to nowhere"...In The Lives of Rain, Handal stands, weeps and celebrates as her poems "travel and move from one continent to the next, move, to be whole." The poet seamlessly weaves her experiences in Europe, Latin America and the Arab world through this "love song in the back pocket of a martyr." Her travels revolve around her current home, New York, where the rain gathers in puddles, ebbs, flows and disperses into lives of love, beauty and pain." -- From the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2006 issue.

Stirring, Heartrending Collection
"The Lives of Rain" is a stirring, heartrending collection that forces us to look at the agonizing ramifications of military intervention and the Palestinian diaspora.Nathalie Handal does not point fingers; perhaps we all are to blame on some level.But one thing is clear: Handal is an important and eloquent voice whose poetic vision is as rare as it is necessary. ... Read more

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This book is a spiritually inspired book to help child victms and adult survivors of sexual abuse to heal. Dr. Robert Pace, Christian counselor and psychologist, who wrote the foreword said of the book, that the healing words and scriptures written by Carolyn in this timely work will help not only children, but will also reach and help the wounded child, still living in adults, to heal. The words deal with the shame, properly replacing the guilt and blame, breaking the silence, and walking through the tedium of necessary forgiveness to release the freedom denied them in silence. ... Read more

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Poet and translator Daniel Simko emigrated with his parents to the U.S.A. and lived here until his death, aged 45, in 2004. Steeped in the traditions of European art, Simko remained reticent about publishing. Thanks to his literary executor, Carolyn Forche, this first collection, in the language Simko grew up into, showcases his gift for the unexpected, exact phrase. The Arrival maps a haunting choreography of travel, memory, and the body so gently you will feel you have been carrying this book around with you all along. ... Read more

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A young girl talks about the many things God created--and their colors. Each section ends with the affirmation "And God made me a beautiful brown!" Developed to help Forche's grandchild deal with the hurtful words spoken in a daycare center, the book's purpose is to help African American children develop a healthy racial self-esteem as they face situations and people who reject them because of their skin color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Left Out
This is a beautifully written Biblically based story - BUT we have a multi-racial family.The book has the recurring phrase "And God made me a beautiful brown!" Some of my children are brown and some aren't - in fact we are all shades. I felt like this book didn't acknowledge the beauty of ALL skin colors God created.

Beautifully written!!!
Dirty Sally
I bought this book for my oldest daughter but it offered so much more for her. I can't stand it when someone makes an ignorant comment about how different my children look. Our family is very diverse and we are always faced with justifying our ethnic legitimacy. If I hear, "She's cute to be dark"one more time. I don't know what I will do. This book is very encouraging for children all over the world who feel like they are "different". Oftentimes, biracial children pose that heartbreaking question, "why was I born?" in Colors come from God ...just like me, the author does an excellent job making those who are different feel validated. "God made my goldfish swim round and round, And God made me a beautiful brown". God made us all beautiful, just the way we are and I commend Mrs. Forche for helping young people to achieve self worth through biblical scriptures. I highly recommend this book.
I am an author myself and I have written a book entitled Dirty Sally...The untold stories of mixed race children who find a new identity, love, faith and forgiveness through God. This Christian based children's book seeks to raise awareness within the bi-racial community. Allegorical tales detail the unspoken realities facing multiracial children, and encourage young readers on how they might make better choices by referring to biblical scripture as a teaching tool. I am also available on Amazon.com. Thank you for your support. God Bless
Myrtice J. Edwards
For more information or to contact the author, Myrtice J. Edwards visit
[...]

What a Beautiful Book!
Carolyn Forche's book for children has a message that all adults need to learn.This wonderful book should be shared with every child with every parent.

In rhythmical verse that children will love, Carolyn celebrates the variety of God's creation.

The book captures the feeling we all should have for one another.

The illustrations in the book make it a work of art.

Great dialogue starter
My family is blended, my husband and I are white.We have 2 biological kids and two adopted African-American kids.We need bridges between two different looks, this book helped.Also, great for families who are African-American and families who are white or Asian or whatever.Starts discussion with kids about skin color and what it does or doesn't mean.Does it in a spiritual, not religious way.

Beautiful book for a girl
I bought this book for my son, but it focuses on a girl throughout. If I had a daughter, it would be great.As the title has God in it, it is very bible and religion oriented which might not be for some people.I just wish I had realized that it wouldn't have drawings of girls and boys.Doesn't really get the message I wanted to convey across to my son. ... Read more

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completely, utterly, distractingly fascinating
Perhaps the most underrated, overlooked poet ever, Desnos' work is not only superior to the Frost/Coleridge/etc. you read in high school, but is also infinitely greater than that of Breton and the other surrealists,establishing the modern paradigm of poetic imagination. No other poetreally comes close, except for the great Jeremy Reed (try Red-HairedAndroid to see what I mean). Warm, humane, and oh-so-brilliant, Desnos'poetry is absolutely, endlessly, mind-alteringly fascinating. Kudos toCarolyn Forche and William Kulik for bringing his work in such afully-realized form to this side of the Atlantic.

Valuable
A great collection of translations from one of the best surrealist poets. A well presented book with a intriguing introduction. ... Read more

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The American Epic
I don't know why so many refer to "Hard Country" as a woman's epic.Any red blooded male with a scrap of intelligence and a bit of soul will be fiercely moved by this magnifiscent work of art.It is terrifying and profound in its relevance to the American Condition and deserves the notoriety of only the most relevant works of American literature; "Moby Dick" and stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft; and the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.

The central image is that of Isis looking for the members of her lover and brother Osiris' body.With that kind of scavenging intellect and an almost hypervigilant sensitivity Doubiago peruses the traumas at the bottom of the American soul conjuring poetic images of her lost love from America's living ruin.Hard Times for all - as the song Charles Dickens once referred to goes.

That sort of endeavor shines with its own greatness.A greatness of scope and magnitude combined with an impossible intimacy and tenderness - a tenderness that is strong but not unseemly.

Hard Country: A Book of Prophetic Poetry
Out of print since 1987, with a new foreword by the publisherJohn Crawford and a new afterword by Doubiago, this second edition ofHard Country restores to general availability one of the great booksof twentieth century American poetry. Presented in four parts, Headstone, Headland, Heartland, and Heartsea, the final and briefest part which contains the couplet "behind the livid hieroglyphs a woman/ I don't see is on the horizon of the desert, screaming," and closes the entire epic with:

buoyed for the moment on my barren coffin, my soft-shelled eggs, with only love for hope look back onto the whole country, its lethal tide its love of death its hatred of love and warn you

So we can't say we haven't been warned, and warned in no uncertain terms, and in a multitude of tones. "I am the history of this country" the poet declares in the poem "Bicentennial," which ought to make it pass muster with at least the Ezra Pound traditionalists where an epic is a poem containing history.Hard Country contains several great and distinct individual poems as well including the poem "Hard Country," about, like much of the whole book, Indians and their effect on Americans of all kinds. "One said you think you're just surrounded by your tall buildings/ and farms, but we're all around you. You'll never be rid of us," and later, "They're inside our bodies now where they can't be fought." Other great poems include "I was Born Coming to the Sea," "Avenue of the Giants," "Crazy Horse," and the poem "Wyoming." Back and forth across this country with her face turned straight at it, the poet goes at her peril, reciting its terrible history against the backdrop of its equally awesome potential. This is a poem of the "West" in America because it frequently traces history from the West to the East, in the opposite direction to which the European incursion occurred and from which it is usually taught, as if the history of this disaster was coming towards us instead of spreading out, "over there," beyond New Jersey as our culture is falsely imagined from the fortress of New York."There is just something spiritual about poetry, something about consciousness, the psyche; it tends to drive you into the forcefield of others and other things. It seems to provide a more direct means for making emotional and truthful critiques of the culture and the facts of your life," Doubiago claims in her "Afterward." Speaking of her methods, she says "Sometimes there really is a beginning, middle, and end. Postmodern/language poetry, the current enforcer against narrative and the I, is not just the poetry of those of us in genuine resistance to the King and exploration for the free world, or simply of the rebellious young who are trying to get away from home, but ominously, the poetry of professors, critics and the Corps who must stay impersonal. It's the poetry of the married and employed, the academicians and the trustfunders. It's the poetry for those who aim to keep their relationships of blackmail.Hard Country is an attempted synthesis of these conflicting aesthetics and consciousnesses, including also the poetics of my college educators who were mostly New Critics and formalists. It holds the vision that many of our writing rules and attitudes are of the same mentality as the U.S.'s genocidal policy of Manifest Destiny, the military's `law and order' that led us into Vietnam and all our wars (all stupid, tragic, and avoidable) the legal and psychic control of women, all non-whites and their cultures, and our ongoing ecological destruction of Earth. It is a quest for full consciousness, a fuller reality in writing anyway than had ever been allowed me, a child of America who believed like religion in its guaranteed `freedom of speech,' and an attempt to be honest in writing, to admit to my own participation in the evil, however helpless and innocent. To try to face the consequences of my privileges. To try to get free." Doubiago is a poet who says she wants to "occupy space without filling it." Reading the love written into every line of this poem is a transformative experience. She is able to write, in "Austin: The Making of a Boy," as sympathetic a portrait of Lyndon Johnson as we're ever apt to get. So too her marvelous rendition of Sitting Bull. These are real people in our history and our lives."I was so slow to talk that I was threatened with specialists. I wouldn't talk because of the self-mortification of imitating and obeying...All my life I've wanted to just speak, truth out of my mouth without pretext or artifice." Hard Country is a book of warmth, substance and style. Entire books will be written about it. Like all great works, it will take longer to write the exegesis than the text itself occupies. There isn't a library in this country, personal, public or private, that won't be enhanced by having Hard Country in it. Doubiago meets the test of the best prophetic writing, cf E.M. Forester and his opinions of Emily Bronte, Melville, Lawrence and Dostoevsky, by looking straight at her subjects without flinching, for finding the exquisite detail that conveys the whole, and for feeling so deeply about the subjects that they acquire the power of song. It is the tone of broken love, the passionate plea for a future that makes the work prophetic. Doubiago has said that when we talk about soul we're talking about our feelings. There will be feeling in your future. The rest of time will be recognizable and indistinguishable from the past. When you begin to feel, as this poem is capable of stimulating you to, the doors to the future can open.

A Great Woman's Epic
This poem is awsome! Hard Country is an exciting and moving epic poem about a woman's life.Doubiago uses a road trip to to explore her own personal issues.The searching theme in this peom is so moving that eventhe reader will become involved in the search for her Ramon.A powerfullpoem for anybody who likes Whitman's Song of Myself, William's Patterson,or H.D.'s Trilogy.This poem will be a classic! ... Read more

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A landmark anthology, providing the most ambitious, far-reachingcollection ofcontemporary Asian and Middle Eastern poetry available.Language for a New Century celebratesthe artistic andcultural forces flourishing todayin the East, bringing together anunprecedentedselection ofworks by South Asian, East Asian,Middle Eastern, and Central Asian poets aswellas poets living in theDiaspora. Some poets, suchas Bei Dao and Mahmoud Darwish, areacclaimed worldwide, but many morewill be new to the reader. The collection includes 400unique voices—political and apolitical, monasticand erotic—that represent a widerartisticmovement thatchallenges thousand-year-old traditions, broadening our notion ofcontemporary literature.Eachsection of theanthology—organized by theme rather than by national affiliation—is preceded by a personal essay from the editors that introduces the poetryand exhorts readers to examine their ownidentities in light of these powerfulpoems. Inan age of violenceand terrorism, oftenpredicated by cultural ignorance, this anthologyis a bold declaration of sharedhumanity anddevotion tothe transformative power of art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A glimpse into the rest of the world
A beautiful collection of poetry from around the world gives one a sense of other cultures, other minds, other lives.

Whets the appetite rather than feeds the soul
'World literature' -- what is that?It seems to mean, literature produced around the world.Apparently, universities have decided that this is somehow an original concept.Still, if anthologies such as this introduce poetry lovers to the broader spectrum of verse (albeit in the lingua franca of English), then the editors have done their job.It is only to our betterment that a thousand flowers bloom -- and indeed so much is what is gathered here.

But an anthology based on such a massive premise is bound to exceed its grasp.Culling top poetry from the four corners is a worthy challenge -- but the price of expanse is depth. What procedures were in place to decide who represents a 'Central American' author?Why were they selected, and others left out?Specialists of the region may certainly quibble about choices -- but the editors give us no clues as to what determined their choices.

Some of the choices, in fact, are bizarre.An American expat who lives in Japan is filed under 'Japanese' poetry.Huh?And many selections are guided by certain . . . well, I won't call them prejudices . . . but it's pretty apparent that poetry selections were based on which authors are receiving the most airplay right now.Ko Un, for example.Darwish.Tamada Chimako.No doubt, all three are excellent poets -- and the translations are decent.And these poets are very popular in their home language -- but they do provide certain thematic realities (sex, Buddhism, colonialism) that fit nicely into certain expectations of North American audiences.

See, the problem with these anthologies is that they become museums of stones:nice poems, translated, put on pedestals, with the headlamp glowing above.But no context is provided:no cultural explanations, or historical explorations -- no annotations or explanations which would deepen our appreciation of the sociohistorical conditions these poems are working in.

Instead, we get 20 pages -- TWENTY! -- or biographies for the translators!Absurd.Do I really care what minor poetry prize one translator garnered, or how some other translator got a big grant to live in Amsterdam for a year?Please, set your egos aside.Twenty pages of annotations, helping the reader to see these poems as more than exercises in translation, would have been most welcome.The headshots for the editors (three pages of biography just for the editors!) was a bit absurd.Clearly, this is more about the translator, than it is the translatee.It's sad, but it's all about the labels and reputations.

Why, for example, do original language versions accompany Tada Chimako's verse, but not other Japanese poets.Is it because they're 'haiku' we need the original?Why not provide some original content for all poets?I wouldn't have minded sacrificing some of the trendier choices if it meant more depthful encounters with poets like Tada.

I truly think the new trend has to be not just translation, but explication -- as chancey as that is.But I'd like more information on Ko Un's political protests and anti-dictatorship work than details about how many magazines his translator (who no one really cares about) has appeared in.Don't strip off the context:render it into the target tongue, but please keep some of the habitat intact.

Still, and for those not experiencing kneejerk anger at this point, I repeat:if this anthology gets an undergrad to read some Malaysian verse, well -- congrats to the editors.


"Lucky are you who find me in the wilderness;
I am the only unquiet ghost who does not seek rest . . . .
I'll remember your song but I'll forget your name."

Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry From the Middle East, Asia and Beyond
In this age of information, poetry is perhaps the most efficient method of expressing grand concepts. Language for a New Century, a collection of contemporary poetry from the Middle East, Asia (including parts of North and East Africa) and its Diaspora, contains one poetic masterpiece after another. Complete with humor, love, anger, despair, confusion, contempt, sadness and joy, the poems open a window into the experience of the world's most populous continent. Lovingly compiled by its editors, who are towering artists in their own right, this collection of 400 voices from the "East" is the culmination of six years of research and collaboration with thousands of people in the 55 countries from which the works are drawn.

The poems were carefully translated from their 40 original languages into English--many for the first time--by expert regional artists who have succeeded in expressing concepts and ideas often difficult to convey. The poems contained in this massive volume represent some of the best in their modern craft, and stand in stark contrast to the disposable monotony we slog through in our daily search for truth. Evocative and provocative, familiar and shocking, the poets pose questions more often than they make pronouncements. Eliciting thought and reflection, they challenge the consumer of "information" to instead become an information producer.

Arranged around nine themes related to the human experience, the structure of the book itself combats Orientalism with humanity. It defies borders, many artificial, many imposed, reconnecting regions in a continent where, prior to Western imperialism, war and the modern nation state, identities, ideas and people interacted more fluidly. Events that have transpired in these regions over the past six years have only made the poems' messages more urgent--and their publication that much more of a triumph. Indeed, Language for a New Century, and the regional networks developed through the work of its tireless collaborators, is likely to bring on a new age of enlightenment; if not for the world, then at least for the reader.

Published in the September/October 2008 Issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Language for a New Century
The presentation gives a fairly complete rendition
of poetry from the Middle East and Asia. Renditions
from Azerbaijan, Turkey, India, Iran, Japan,
Palestine and Iceland are provided for the readers'
enjoyment. Tidbits of typical poems are provided
together with the applicable authors. i.e.

Jennifer Dobbys-Elesy wrote "Pure Music" which contains
the following passage:

" Child among night flowers , opening their dark eyes
to the moon , "

Hamid Ismailov wrote "The Shaping Clay" containing the
following passage:

"Crack open your door, silence to the murmurs of a
cottage under the cradle of the sleeping clay."

Kyimay Kaung wrote "Eskimo Paradise" containing the
following passage:

" Eskimo paradise is warm paradise of Bedouins cold-
my paradise. "

A literary anthology no college-level collection should be without.
LANGUAGE FOR A NEW CENTURY: CONTEMPORARY POETRY FROM THE MIDDLE EAST, ASIA AND BEYOND provides an unprecedented collection of poetry from the East, blending and presenting works by Middle Eastern and Asian writers. Some 400 poets are featured here, selecting poets whose works represent a wider artistic movement in the East. It's a literary anthology no college-level collection should be without.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch ... Read more

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VHS Video in VG condition, in hard plastic case. Reading of The Angel of History, and conversation with Michael Silverblatt. ... Read more

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