Kalbasi's poetry is generous and abundantly human, passionate and compassionate. -- Jimmy Santiago Baca, author, September ,2006
Kalbasi's poetry is generous and abundantly human, passionate and compassionate. --Jimmy Santiago Baca, author, September ,2006
Many are the feelings and sensations echoing nearly overflowing from this moving collection. Like the intimate bond the author herself describes as connecting the world of dreams and the world of reality, her verses run on the thin edge between a subtle series of opposites. Resignation and hope, sorrow and joy, loneliness and communion, loss and conquest, desire and aversion, war and peace: all these confront each other, repel each other but never separate completely, yet interlace weaving the arduous story of the poet. By using words now sweet but stern, now sharp but responsive however always in a straight diction, without frills Sheema Kalbasi retraces her past, the hard trip of a young girl who fled from her tormented home country, that modern Iran she still likes to call the Ancient Persia, to search for a new home, a new life, her freedom. So Mighty Are the Stories ... but likewise she can look at the present and the future with neat realism, as well as with intact wonder, so that her Mel lowly-poetical voice streams with messages not only of despondency and denunciation, but also of courage and anticipation. These Echoes In Exile then turn into the author s chant of liberation, revealing her self-sustaining force before the hatred and the division ubiquitous in the world and afflicting above all her beloved Middle East. From line to line the refugee, the nobody she used to name herself at the time of her flight, they all show up in their vigor and radiance, disclosing to us the true identity of the poet and her discreet, unique sensuality not screamed out, just whispered. So a clear-cut figure and a transparent character finally come to light simply those of a woman deeply able and willing to love. ALESSIO ZANELLI --Alessio Zanelli
Winner 2008 National Indie Excellence award in category of social change. --National Indie Excellence Award
Product Description
Echoes in Exile is a rich collection of poetry describing Iran and Middle Eastern politics. The poems are intimate, painted in a form that makes the unthinkable familiar. Sheema Kalbasi is the first poet of Middle Eastern heritage who demonstrates her concerns for the mistreatments of religious and ethnic minorities. She humanizes the Iranian people to the international community. This book can be viewed as a memoir and be displayed alongside Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran or Marjan Satrapi's Persepolis. Sheema believes that in light of the current political situation between Iran and the United States her words bring an important message to be shared by both cultures. Her work as a poet and translator confirm that the beauty and strength to convey the vast spectrum of emotions through language are exclusive to no country or culture.
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