Customer Reviews

Far from Algiers (Wick Poetry First Book, #14)

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A "performance poet" I know once called poetry "the snack food of literature." Well, she was young, so I forgive her. But sometimes it seems that a snack is all the current literary scene wants. They won't get it here. Djelloul Marbrook's "Far From Algiers" is the best kind of repast: every poem multi-flavored, nutrient-rich, and demanding repeated tastings. This is poetry as nourishment, the solid meal so needed in a spiritually starved, caffeinated world. Slow down, chew each bite. Feel stronger aferward.

What makes these poems stand out is not only their evocation of Algeria, but the pain of being denied by one's own father. At a time when we've just elected as president a man who was largely denied by his -- and at a time when far too many young people grow up without fathers -- these poems go a long way toward imparting that sense of deep, lifelong hurt that often accompanies such abandonment. I'll never casually use the word "[...]" again without thinking of what these poems taught me. Rich, warm, lovely poems that are deeply satisfying and which last a long time in the mind.

These poems are among the most hauntingly beautiful works imaginable. They stay with me to the extent that I find myself thinking about them long after having read them. I highly recommend this collection.

These poems will stay with you long after you've read (and re-read) them. They grab you with titles such as What Good Did My Own Good Do Me? and Bitchy Nurse. What follows are hauntingly beautiful poems about belonging, not belonging and facing and owning our feelings. Mr. Marbrook shows a wicked sense of humor also. I think the next time someone asks me (as in the poem Sinistral) "And what is your background?" I will answer "I have an advanced degree in bastardy." There are many such treasures in this wonderful book of poems by Mr. Marbrook. I am looking forward to more from this talented writer!

I wept reading EXILE, page 51. While poetry, for the most part escapes me, I was touched for all of us reading about Juanita Guccione. She could have been any mother absorbed in her world at the expense of those around her. Her art was simply her world. Reading and re-reading somehow let's us understand a mother who was first an artist.
And, perhaps brings a little understanding for all whose career turns out to be first. Recommend.

This is a touching, insightful and provocative collection of original thoughts. Very contemplative and commanding to be re-read.

I know that a book of poetry is superb when I want to quote the poetry rather than to frame my own words. Marbrook's poems, plain on the page, smooth on the tongue, seem slight and limber. "I'm always in two countries at once,/the one where you say I am/and the one where I know I am." But let the words sink below the surface of your mind, and suddenly you and the poem are doing heavy lifting, working up a good sweat. This is not a big book, but I could not name another that squeezes as much of life and the front page and sensibility into 4 dozen poems. For once and at last, a major poetry prize brings an important, mature and relatively unknown talent to us ordinary readers.

The poems in Djelloul Marbrook's Far From Algiers behave like a perfect storm, waiting to pour down upon the reader with word and symbol and feeling. Populated by the young, the old, the bitchy, the artistic and the profane, Marbrook's poems bring together innocence and wisdom in a book that is certain to pull you into itself again and again.

Marbrook is a master of insight and psychological release. He invites, maybe insists, that the reader accompany him to a variety of places in the world and places in the heart in order to experience with him the bi-polar nature of humanity and/or inhumanity.

His poems are stirring, inclusive, unsettling and sometimes conflicting. They are capable of bridging "then" and "now," "fact" and "illusion," and they gift the reader with an appetite for more from this brilliant poet.

I am a voracious reader of contemporary poetry. This offering from Djelloul Marbrook is exciting. I am extremely anxious for his next book.

Here, some lines from one of my favorite of his poems, "Sinistral" :

You asked what my background is.
I wish I had one, but if I did
I would probably know less than I do
And be more certain about it.

Buy this book. Buy two and give one to someone who loves poetry.