Flawed Landscape: Poems 1987-2008 [Paperback]

Sharif S. Elmusa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2008

"Flawed Landscape is an extraordinary book that verges between the grief of being displaced and the joy of being alive. Elmusa speaks with the anger of the aggrieved, but also with tenderness and understanding for those he left behind and those he meets along the way. Elmusa is a true poet, a yearner for a better life and for the constancy of time."
--Pablo Medina, poet, author of Points of Balance/Puntos de apoyo

"Sharif Elmusa writes with exquisite energy and empathy, and has, for decades, been one of my favorite poets. His work is original and necessary. Celebrate this stunning collection!"
--Naomi Shihab Nye, writer and anthologist

"These are an exile's poems, marked by loss but offered with a generous spirit. Through them, the landscape transforms--revealing, through Elmusa's vision, its difficult beauty. This is not grounds for despair, then. But ground to work from. That is hope, indeed."
--Melanie Carter, poet

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sharif Elmusa is a widely published poet, scholar, and translator. He co-edited, and contributed to, the anthology, Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-American Poetry (Interlink Books). Elmusa is currently an associate professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo. He served for four years as director of the Middle East Studies Program. He obtained his undergraduate degree from Cairo University and doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is Palestinian by birth, American by citizenship.

Product Details

• Paperback: 71 pages
• Publisher: Interlink Books (August 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566567343
• ISBN-13: 978-1566567343
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,156,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful, Haunting Collection, December 11, 2008

By 

K. Jensen (Baltimore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flawed Landscape: Poems 1987-2008 (Paperback)

Flawed Landscape is a beautiful collection of poems that echo and resound with the loss of Palestine, the pleasures of survival and yearning; and the jaw-dropping ironies of a world in which too many of us spend more time wondering about "what to have for dinner" than trying to put an end to the atrocities of war and conquest.

These well-wrought lyrics sing the voice of a refugee who has managed to create a "folklore of each of the senses," but who will never fully recover from the original sin, the original song of rejection, the bittersweet gift of sadness--from a mother who "stuffed our thin bones with sentiments" and a father who had "a reservoir of tears."

The collection offers a new version of "The Little Prince" who cannot understand the logic of an air force bomber who is willing to kill innocent children in his hunt for the "monsters who hid in the building." From here Elmusa takes the reader on a haunting, resonant tour of the Palestinian tragedy, and beyond to a world in which the poet is always migratory, passing, travelling, yearning for a home. In many poems a home is found, in love, in marriage, in children, and in the revelations of the senses--the "olives and pears and figs and whatnot" of a continued life.

Despite the overarching tone of loneliness that links the three sections of the book, Flawed Landscape includes many poems that are whimsical in nature, underlining the poet's playful sense of humor. And yet the most powerful impression is that of loss. The reader is left with an image of the child in the refugee camp gazing up at the sky. "I had no ladder/and nothing from heaven fell/in my crescent hands."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Focusing on the themes of war, family, and exile, his work is powerful and moving, December 12, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flawed Landscape: Poems 1987-2008 (Paperback)

A lot can change in a person over twenty one years. "Flawed Landscape: Poems 1987-2008" is award nominated poet Sharif S. Elmusa's solo anthology of poetry. Focusing on the themes of war, family, and exile, his work is powerful and moving, making "Flawed Landscape" a vivid portrait of a man's life through poetry. "The Two Angels": Among the things mother told me as a child://Every person has two angels//standing on his shoulders./And they weigh every deed./On the right, Nakir, /for the good deeds;/for the bad, Nakeer, on the left.//That is why my gait is tilted now/and as the years pass--/ my back will grow hunched.// Such nakedness!