Title:
Calling a wolf a wolf : poems
Author:
Akbar, Kaveh, author.
Personal Author:
Uniform Title:
Poems. Selections
Publication Information:
Farmington, Maine : Alice James Books, [2017]
Physical Description:
89 pages ; 23 cm
Summary:
""The struggle from late youth on, with and without God, agony, narcotics and love is a torment rarely recorded with such sustained eloquence and passion as you will find in this collection."--Fanny Howe. This highly-anticipated debut boldly confronts addiction and courses the strenuous path of recovery, beginning in the wilds of the mind. Poems confront craving, control, the constant battle of alcoholism and sobriety, and the questioning of the self and its instincts within the context of this never-ending fight. From "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before": Sometimes you just have to leave whatever's real to you, you have to clomp through fields and kick the caps off all the toadstools. Sometimes you have to march all the way to Galilee or the literal foot of God himself before you realize you've already passed the place where you were supposed to die. I can no longer remember the being afraid, only that it came to an end. Kaveh Akbar is the founding editor of Divedapper. His poems appear recently or soon in The New Yorker, Poetry, APR, Tin House, PBS NewsHour, and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic (Sibling Rivalry). The recipient of a 2016 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, Akbar was born in Tehran, Iran, and currently lives and teaches in Florida"--
Language:
English
Contents:
Soot -- I: Terminal. Wild pear tree ; Do you speak Persian? ; Yeki bood yeki nabood ; Portrait of the alcoholic with home invader and housefly ; Recovery ; Drinkaware self-report ; Calling a wolf a wolf (inpatient) ; Stop me if you've heard this one before ; Portrait of the alcoholic with withdrawal ; Some boys aren't born they bubble ; Heritage ; Milk ; Portrait of the alcoholic with doubt and kingfisher ; Desunt nonnulla ; Learning to pray ; Portrait of the alcoholic three weeks sober ; Supplication with rabbit skull and bouquet ; Exciting the canvas ; A boy steps into the water ; Wake me up when it's my birthday -- II: Hunger. What seems like joy ; Best shadows ; Portrait of the alcoholic with moths and river ; Rimrock ; Prayer ; Besides, little goat, you can't just go asking for mercy ; Thirstiness is not equal division ; Long pig ; Being in this world makes me feel like a time traveler ; Against dying ; Portrait of the alcoholic with relapse fantasy ; Orchids are sprouting from the floorboards ; The new world ; Against hell ; Palmyra ; Unburnable the cold is flooding our lives ; Portrait of the alcoholic frozen in block of ice ; Neither now nor never ; Everything that moves is alive and a threat---a reminder ; What use is knowing anything if no one is around ; No is a complete sentence -- III: Irons. Portrait of the alcoholic floating in space with severed umbilicus ; An apology ; The straw is too long, the axe is too dull ; My kingdom for a murmur of fanfare ; Every drunk wants to die sober it's how we beat the game ; Tassiopeia ; Portrait of the alcoholic with craving ; Fugu ; River of milk ; God ; Despite their size children are easy to remember they watch you ; Ways to harm a thing ; Personal inventory: fearless (temporis fila) ; So often the body becomes a distraction ; I won't lie this plague of gratitude ; Portrait of the alcoholic stranded alone on a desert island.
ISBN:
9781938584671
Format :
Book
