With a journalist's eye, a blind man's ear and a troubador's voice, Handal creates tableaus of lovers who seem always to be looking for love, even when they have found it. They yearn for love, approach it, confront it. She writes about the gentle pathos of love with the same fearlessness we find in her poems of exile, isolation and war.
Handal's lyric poetry is riddled with the music of questioning. What is strength? What is love? . . . Her poems do what poetry does best. They call us to question and own our humanity, clear-eyed, staunchly, regardless of culture, religion or gender—like a candle burning, softly vivid, a pure flame on the table of our global human tribe.
Sometimes we have questions that seem to defy answers or even suppositions but then we find Love and Strange Horses to help us map out a course to continue loving life. A really wonderful, thoughtful read by an intriguing new voice.
High-Octane poetry, anintense amd committed personal poetics . . . we should thank her for the space and energy of this book.
Nathalie Handal's Love and Strange Horses is riddled with provocative incantations that verge on a conjuring solidly based in this world and beyond. There's a subtle singing locked inside each poem that raises the stakes. This cosmopolitan voice belongs to the human family, and it luxuriates in crossing necessary borders. The pages are lit with scintillations that transport the reader to pithy zones of thought and pleasure.
Her irresistible charm comes through on every page as it does in person. It is a privilege to be able to read her verses . . . On every page is a discovery, and with every discovery, another one waiting. . . . Her distinctive poetic voice takes her around the globe. And indeed she should be celebrated and read.
A densely-textured book written by an unapologeticcally female (and feminine) perspective. As a young and inventive poet who sees herself as world citizen, Handal's insightful perspectives on the polarities of desire and love's potential for healing are not only heroic, they are valuable.
The ambition of this collection is perhaps the purest that lyric poetry claims, that of music's immediacy. . . . Handal poses unanswerable questions and then struggles with them. The struggle is more important than the correct answer.
Trembles with belonging (and longing) and love and sex.
If you . . . enjoy reading poetry that challenges y our thinking, that makes your synapses fire and the brain's pleasure center sort of stand up and go 'Oooh,' then I highly recommend 'Love and Strange Horses.'
Trembles with belonging (and longing) and love and sex.”
—The New York Times
“Nathalie Handal’s Love and Strange Horses is riddled with provocative incantations that verge on a conjuring solidly based in this world and beyond. There’s a subtle singing locked inside each poem that raises the stakes. This cosmopolitan voice belongs to the human family, and it luxuriates in crossing necessary borders. The pages are lit with scintillations that transport the reader to pithy zones of thought and pleasure.”
—Yusef Komunyakaa
“Sometimes we have questions that seem to defy answers or even suppositions but then we find Love and Strange Horses to help us map out a course to continue loving life. A really wonderful, thoughtful read by an intriguing new voice.”
—Nikki Giovanni
“Handal’s lyric poetry is riddled with the music of questioning. What is strength? What is love? . . . Her poems do what poetry does best. They call us to question and own our humanity, clear-eyed, staunchly, regardless of culture, religion or gender—like a candle burning, softly vivid, a pure flame on the table of our global human tribe.”
—Levantine Culture Center
“High-Octane poetry, anintense amd committed personal poetics . . . we should thank her for the space and energy of this book.”
—Banipal
“A densely-textured book written by an unapologeticcally female (and feminine) perspective. As a young and inventive poet who sees herself as world citizen, Handal’s insightful perspectives on the polarities of desire and love’s potential for healing are not only heroic, they are valuable.”
—Lake Affect Magazine
“Her irresistible charm comes through on every page as it does in person. It is a privilege to be able toread her verses . . . On every page is a discovery, and with every discovery, another one waiting. . . . Her distinctive poetic voice takes her around the globe. And indeed she should be celebrated and read.”
—This Week in Palestine
“The ambition of this collection is perhaps the purest that lyric poetry claims, that of music’s immediacy. . . . Handal poses unanswerable questions and then struggles with them. The struggle is more important than the correct answer.”
—Poetry International
As I read Love and Strange Horses—a book that trembles with belonging (and longing) and love and sex—I almost felt as if I were cheating on my wife.
—The New York Times
