Something Sinister

by Hayan Charara

Overview

These poems grapple with conflicts arising from a world in which the personal, political, cultural, and aesthetic are deeply entangled and often troubling. Charara does not shy away from the tensions, unease, doubts, regrets, or bafflement of this world; and his wide-ranging focus brings together people from all walks of life—a father obsessed with the boxer Muhammad Ali; a girl missing since the 1970s; a mother and daughter trapped in a submerged vehicle; and a suicide bomber, his witnesses, and victims. This collection shows us the mind of an inventive poet undertaking his work with careful consideration, authority, and heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780887486050
Publisher:	Carnegie-Mellon University Press
Publication date:	02/03/2016
Series:	Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporary Series: Poetry Series
Pages:	72
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

HAYAN CHARARA was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Arab immigrants. He has two previous poetry collections, The Alchemist’s Diary and The Sadness of Others. He edited Inclined to Speak, an anthology of contemporary Arab American poetry, and his children’s book, The Three Lucys, won the New Voices Award Honor. He lives in Texas.

Table of Contents

Being Muslim • What Is Mine • Animals • Why the Weather Matters • You • Starved Dogs Eating Snow • 23,627 Miles • The Trees • Prayer for the Living • The Weather • Narrative • Once •The Other Side • In a Perfect World • Mother and Daughter • The God Experience • Man Sleeping in the Interstate • The Rules • Signs • A Story • In Memoriam • Family Portrait • O Mother, O Father • Something Sinister Going On • Dog • O!

Editorial Reviews

Each time I read Hayan Charara’s insightful, tragic, loving book, and am witness myself to his acts of witness, the chill of poetry runs down my spine and up into my scalp. This necessary work is not like any other, from the short surreal poems that come unflinchingly back to specific human truth to the long “Usage” and its Whitmanian catalog of what is done to us with daily language. ”—Marilyn Hacker


“It is unusual that the deeply private in American poetry connects to the immensely public at the world stage. It is even a rarer event when this is accomplished with such clarity and disarming language. American poetry needs to pay attention to this book and celebrate the expansive tender vision of Hayan Charara. His poems feed us what we want, and what we think we want, because the poems have made a pact with us: that they will also offer us what we fear. And we accept it all because ultimately this is a book of fearless love.”—Fady Joudah

From the Publisher