Seam: Poems by Tarfia Faizullah (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry) - Softcover

Faizullah, Tarfia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809333252 ISBN 13: 9780809333257

Verlag: SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIV PR, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

<div><div><p>The poems in this captivating collection weave beauty with violence, the personal with the historic as they recount the harrowing experiences of the two hundred thousand female victims of rape and torture at the hands of the Pakistani army during the 1971 Liberation War. As the child of Bangladeshi immigrants, the poet in turn explores her own losses, as well as the complexities of bearing witness to the atrocities these war heroines endured.</p><p>Throughout the volume, the narrator endeavors to bridge generational and cultural gaps even as the victims recount the horror of grief and personal loss. As we read, we discover the profound yet fragile seam that unites the fields, rivers, and prisons of the 1971 war with the poet&#8217;s modern-day hotel, or the tragic death of a loved one with the holocaust of a nation.</p><p>Moving from West Texas to Dubai, from Virginia to remote villages in Bangladesh and back again, the narrator calls on the legacies of Willa Cather, C&#233;sar Vallejo, Tomas Transtr&#246;mer, and Paul Celan to give voice to the voiceless. Fierce yet loving, devastating and magical at once, <i>Seam</i> is a testament to the lingering potency of memory and the bravery of a nation&#8217;s victims.<br><br> Winner, Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, 2014<br> Winner, Binghamton University Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award, 2015<br> Winner, Drake University Emerging Writers Award, 2015</p></div></div>

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

<div><div><p>Tarfia Faizullah was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1980, and raised in Midland, Texas, by parents who had immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh in 1978. She has an MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in <i>The Missouri Review</i>, <i>Ninth Letter, Blackbird, The Massachusetts Review, The Southern Review,</i> and elsewhere. A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Ploughshares Cohen Award, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers&#8217; Conference, the Sewanee Writers&#8217; Conference, the Kenyon Writers&#8217; Workshop, and other honors.</p></div></div>

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

<div>ELEGY WITH HER RED-TIPPED FINGERS<br><br> Two weeks ago I crossed two oceans wide as<br> the funeral processions to your grave:<br><br> bearded men continued to thumb plastic<br> prayer beads beside your sheet-swaddled<br><br> body. Grandmother, in Virginia, I cradled<br> the phone to my cheek and stood over the dark<br><br> skillet, waiting to turn over another slice<br> of bacon to slip into my mouth, knowing<br><br> well that that sin, too, like so many others,<br> would dissolve once I willed it to.&#160;<i>Allah-er borosha</i>,<br><br> I mumbled to your daughter:&#160;<i>It&#39;s Allah&#39;s will</i>:<br> words I knew couldn&#39;t fill even that half-filled<br><br> suitcase spilled out across hardwood floor: color<br> of those low, yellow plains of west Texas Mother<br><br> sobbed past on her way to the airport, compelling<br> her body faster towards yours before it disappeared<br><br> into its bamboo-bordered grave. Once, I stood<br> over your other granddaughter&#39;s grave while<br><br> cicadas hummed the sky clean. Once, I wanted<br> to be the white wind shirred across any open<br><br> field. Once, I lay beside you, a child unmoving,<br> a body slowly filling with feathers: together<br><br> we listened to Grandfather&#39;s breathing, labored<br> against white mosquito netting-and now you<br><br> too are dead, two weeks too early. Now, after<br> another stitch-thin&#160;<i>rickshawallah</i>&#160;pedals<br><br> my ocean-tugged body across those severed<br> Dhaka streets, and after I have slipped into his dark<br><br> fingers a few extra takahs, and after I have made<br> my way past storefronts choked with glittering<br><br> stacks of gold bangles, and after another tailor<br> has slipped from his neck the faded measuring<br><br> tape, and after he has pulled it taut across my back,<br> around my leg-who, if not you, will ask me<br><br> to tear free the folded fabric from its paper parcel<br> to finger its gleaming softness? Who will ask<br><br> of me its worth, its weight? I kneel, open another<br> razor, plastic-capped, from a slowly-emptying suitcase-<br><br><i>lotion, mosquito repellent, tape recorder</i>-items<br> on a list I drew thick, black lines through. But<br><br> it won&#39;t be your voice I rewind over, fast-forward<br> through. It won&#39;t be your hair you&#39;ll sit beside<br><br> the window to rub henna into. It won&#39;t be<br> your red-tipped fingers I&#39;ll press a jar into:<br><br> small gift you won&#39;t have asked me to bring.<br> It won&#39;t be your veins I&#39;ll notice, too late: fluvial<br><br> ribbons rising stark and sudden through the silk-thin<br> skin of your hands that won&#39;t turn over another page<br><br> of newsprint dark with Bangla: language I speak<br> now to your grieving daughter, this language<br><br> the bodies of women were once broken<br> open for.&#160;<i>Put up your hair</i>, you will never<br><br> again admonish.&#160;<i>Please let me see your lovely face</i>.</div>

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIV PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0809333252
• ISBN 13: 9780809333257
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 65
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande