The Earth in the Attic
Fady Joudah
The Earth in the Attic
Fady Joudahs The Earth in the Attic is this years winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. In his poems Joudah explores big themes - identity, war, religion, what we hold in common - while never losing sight of the quotidian, the specific. Contest judge Louise Glück describes the poet in her Foreword as 'that strange animal, the lyric poet in whom circumstance and profession ... have compelled obsession with large social contexts and grave national dilemmas'. She finds in his poetry an incantatory quality and concludes, 'These are small poems, many of them, but the grandeur of conception is inescapable.
4.0 out of 5 based on 1 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
Poetry |
| Format |
Paperback |
| Pages |
96 |
| RRP |
£10.00 |
| Date of Publication |
May 2008 |
| ISBN |
978-0300134315 |
| Publisher |
Yale University Press |
| |
Fady Joudahs The Earth in the Attic is this years winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. In his poems Joudah explores big themes - identity, war, religion, what we hold in common - while never losing sight of the quotidian, the specific. Contest judge Louise Glück describes the poet in her Foreword as 'that strange animal, the lyric poet in whom circumstance and profession ... have compelled obsession with large social contexts and grave national dilemmas'. She finds in his poetry an incantatory quality and concludes, 'These are small poems, many of them, but the grandeur of conception is inescapable.
Reviews
The Guardian
Charles Bainbridge
“This is an original and moving first collection from a poet who has been an acclaimed translator of Darwish. Joudah, a Palestinian-American medic, is also a member of Doctors Without Borders, and much of the writing here explores his experiences with urgency and clarity: "Today, I yelled at three old women / Who wouldn't stop bargaining for pills they didn't need." Joudah's poetry thrives on dramatic shifts in perspective, on continually challenging received notions. In one of his most moving poems, an elegy for a child, the professional distance of the opening is transformed into something much more complex and resonant when Joudah and the mother meet by chance after the child's death: "We talked back towards each other, we met, we / Read verses from the Quran / Our palms open / Elbows upright like surgeons."”
29/11/2008
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