Product Description
This book provides a sampling of poems written in exile from 1986 to 1994, drawn from my previous books, "After the Silence," "Sorrow of the Border," and 'Poems of Venice." It covers both periods of my life in America, when I was still rummaging in the ruins of the lost revolution in my homeland, Iran, and when I finally came to terms with my new situation in Los Angeles. A postscript added to the poems describes these changes in detail.
From the Publisher
The poetry of "Muddy Shoes" is born of great suffering yet affirms deep dignity and respect for that wider experience of the world, brought here through danger and carved out of solitude and reflection. Tragically, we are seldom allowed to hear or see such things, blocked from sensing the reality of other countries, knowledges, forms of speech; when these are allowed in or come in, they are, without recourse, smoothed out, conquered if you will, without mercy.
Naficy, as a poet of Los Angeles, suggests a new route, and this one to freedom. Is it Los Angeles that has enabled a writer to deal with such issues esthetically, and with such determination? Is this special impetus capable perhaps of being born only here? Privacy and separateness preserve the otherness and beauty necessary for culture, but they also propel the meaningfulness of speech. Naficy brings these as a gift, together and simultaneously, to the table of our common language.
Who but a poet could halt devouring movement or place into motion inert rock? By being wiling to come forth in an unorthodox way, and speak of things so alienable in a life rendered fast and hollow, Naficy exemplifies a new attentiveness, a new fearlessness. The world is far bigger than "America," and, absolutely, Los Angeles. The poet shows a way to attend to this world we as a plural people embody and inhabit, yet seemingly have forgotten to heed.
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