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E-mails from Scheherazad (Contemporary Poetry Series)
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by MOHJA KAHF
Sales Rank: 80185
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List Price: $14.95
$11.96
At Amazon
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Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: University Press of Florida; 1st edition April 30, 2003
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0813026210
ISBN-13: 978-0813026213
Product Dimensions:
8.3 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces
From Booklist
Kahf is an earthy, playful, and purposeful poet who writes with as much sass as sensitivity about what it's like to be a woman, a person of color, an immigrant, and a headscarf-wearing Muslim in a non-Muslim country. Born in Damascus, Kahf came to the U.S. as a child, and her empathy is incandescent for all who have had to leave their homes to save their lives and those of their families, and for those whose homes have been destroyed, expressing particular commiseration with besieged Iraqis. Whimsical, colloquial, and disarmingly witty, Kahf conjures a reincarnated Scheherazad "living in Hackensack" and newly divorced so that she's free to pursue her writing. "Words are to die for," after all. Kahf astutely considers the myriad conundrums and frustrations of women's lives in general and Muslim women in particular, and she is brilliantly wry and utterly irresistible in such showstoppers as her poem about a walkout staged by all the chilly and hungry female nudes and odalisques in a Matisse retrospective. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Review
"Kahf is an earthy, playful, and purposeful poetbrilliantly wry and utterly irresistable." -- Booklist, March 1, 2003
A remarkable debut collectionthese poems are to be read, reread, and sent to poetry readers around the country. -- Bloomsbury Review, Vol. 24 #6, November/December 2004
Mohja Kahf poems perform. They come out of the page and force you to pay attention to them. -- H-Net Reviews, June 2005
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Customer Reviews & Comments
"E-mails from Scheherazad," by Mohja Kahf, is an excellent addition to the multiethnic body of U.S. poetry. A short bio at the end of the book notes that Kahf was born in Damascus, Syria, came to the U.S. as a child with her family, and has attained the rank of associate professor at the University of Arkansas. Kahf's poems cover a number of themes: the immigrant experience in America, cultural difference, women's issues, war, violence, and poetry itself. There are several poems that deal with the issue of the veil traditionally worn by Muslim women. A good representative poem is "My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears," a striking story of cross-cultural tension. Kahf's language is passionate, sometimes witty, and always clear and accessible. Her poems are richly spiced with many cultural references: to Wal-Mart, Robert Frost, Lt. Uhura, the "Rubayat" of Omar Khayyam, MTV, etc. She is particularly searing when reflecting on living in a post-9/11 world. Her compassionate but critical eye captures both the joy and tragedy of life. Highly recommended for college classes, book circles, or individual reading.
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E-mails from Scheherazad (Contemporary Poetry Series)
List Price: $14.95
Available from Amazon
Price: $11.96
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