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Book | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | 811.6 ALM | 31330009112107 | Searching... Unknown |
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Book | Searching... Chelmsford Public Library | POETRY/ALMONTASER/PB | 31480011462873 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Dracut - Moses Greeley Parker Memorial Library | 811.6/ALM | 31482002942590 | Searching... Unknown |
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Book | Searching... Rockport Public Library | 811.6 ALMONTASER | 32129002440245 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry
Winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, selected by Harryette Mullen
By turns aggressively reckless and fiercely protective, always guided by faith and ancestry, Threa Almontaser's incendiary debut asks how mistranslation can be a form of self-knowledge and survival. A love letter to the country and people of Yemen, a portrait of young Muslim womanhood in New York after 9/11, and an extraordinarily composed examination of what it means to carry in the body the echoes of what came before, Almontaser's polyvocal collection sneaks artifacts to and from worlds, repurposing language and adapting to the space between cultures. Half-crunk and hungry, speakers move with the force of what cannot be contained by the limits of the American imagination, and instead invest in troublemaking and trickery, navigate imperial violence across multiple accents and anthems, and apply gang signs in henna, utilizing any means necessary to form a semblance of home. In doing so, The Wild Fox of Yemen fearlessly rides the tension between carnality and tenderness in the unruly human spirit.
Reviews (2)
Guardian Review
Who is the wild fox of Yemen? I busied myself with a form of foxhunting as I read on through Threa Almontaser's extraordinary debut collection. She is a Yemeni born in the US and uses her in-between position to the full. Her poems are written with ambidextrous energy, acknowledging New York, gravitating towards Yemen and employing two languages: English and Arabic. One of the most original things about them is the use of transliterated - untranslated - Arabic words. You might need your mobile at hand to Google vocabulary as you read - from fajr (dawn prayer) to gahwa (brew of coffee) to miswak (twig with which to clean your teeth). Each Arabic word acts like a tiny perforation through which, as you translate, light pours. (At times, she offers Arabic script as well.) What is fascinating about the decision not to supply translation is that it turns the English-speaking reader into a foreigner. We become, at several removes, go-betweens as we learn about life in Yemen, its beauty and its suffering. There is a fox of sacrifice, a dream creature - perhaps an image of Yemen itself, predicted to be, by 2022, the poorest country in the world. But a fox is also a scavenger, not irrelevant in this context. In her opening salvo, Hunting Girliness, she disdains conventional femininity, her stand brought on by violent global events. She declares that, after the twin towers fell, she "wore/ the city's hatred as hijab". The economy of the phrase amplifies its shocking effect. There is a sense, too, in which Almontaser herself is the fox, giving predators the slip in Shaytan Sneaks Bites of My Tuna Sandwich: "I am still afraid to stay out after sundown. They might follow me home/ as an animal." But it is the fox of language that is wildest of all. In Heritage Emissary, she describes her father reminiscing in Arabic about "catching a wild fox with his cousin". She observes that Arabic is "the medium through which his body can return home". The immersion in words - she never under-writes - is a varied adventure. There is a gorgeous poem, Stained Skin, in which she describes her 12-year-old self dying her left hand with henna and salutes her patient aunts waiting for their decorative art to work, reclining on couches, turning "lanky limbs" into "a mysterious mural". Issues about belonging remain complicated. Visiting Yemen with her father, Almontaser turns "alien" into a verb to explain how she feels: "I/ alien my way into his country to make it mine." Some of the most powerful moments in this book, illustrated with sober black-and-white photos of (one guesses) her parents and her childhood self, explore her relationship with Arabic and its elusiveness. Recognized Language begins: "Where did my old words go, my first words? I found my native speech like a trap/ door, the Arabic softening my fall." She is determined not to let her mother tongue slip: "I swear I'll fishnet/ pronouns so fast, swallow adjectives whole¿ " Throughout, the language of consumption - devouring, tasting, swallowing whole - contrasts with her account of Yemen and the desperate hunger there. Hunger Wraps Himself is a harrowing poem. It might include the light respite of imagining Allah giving kids "stomachs solace and shish-kebabs" but it then strikes without warning, moving on to the tale of how she bought a man lamb dumplings: "He returns half, says,/ We don't eat to be filled. We eat to not go/ Hungry." In the same poem she declares: "I peel the skin off everything, even the grapes." As a poet she does this too - a wild fox must survive. Dream Interpretation [Fox] by Threa Almontaser Found napping in your purse means you will bump into your younger self trekking through a botanical garden, searching for an apology. A tail plucked and pinned to your hijab means an uncle will beg you to marry his son, bring him across the ocean where he won't know hunger. I can't stop eating, even the spines - they shred my throat, tongue a raw copper. I have stopped apologizing with intention. Get myself a triple cheeseburger, bacon this time. Very American. Because that's what I am now, right? Tripping over familiar shapes on an empty road, dizzy from the shisha and the pork, thinking headlights look holy from afar. How easy to make a thing all wrong. Most of my cousins are dying. The littlest leads me by the hand into a cave streaked with limestone, handprints, a swollen matriarchy. I find our famished ancestors cooking beside orange tatters. In their circle, a fox, her body ready for the fire.
Library Journal Review
Winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, Almontaser's debut collection is a wonderfully crafted portrait of Muslim womanhood and the country and people of Yemen that also explores femininity, family, post-9/11 discrimination against Muslims, and the wild fox--a "lost, sly animal" who has a reoccurring presence here. Throughout, Almontaser weaves in history, cultural traditions, and the Arabic language, revealing a standout gift for metaphor, wordplay, and storytelling. The fear of disconnection between homeland and home is a recurring theme. In "Recognized Language," for instance, the narrator struggles to remember the Arabic words that have been lost: "Languages slip into our mouths like second-hand/ smoke. But English grinds Arabic to white sand." In "Guide to Gardening Your Roots," Almontaser blends what it means to be Yemeni with the struggles of being Muslim in America: "I don't bother to cross-examine my accents. When I land, each country looks outside their/ windows and sees a fire-breathing invasion." But later the poem acknowledges, "No healing exists beneath the ground. But haya grows in an empty desert. The implication/ being that water trickles back to its center. That even the unrooted can ascend." VERDICT Captivating and beautifully written, this collection will appeal to a wide variety of audiences, and those not as familiar with Yemeni history or the Arabic language will assuredly be inspired to learn more. Recommended for all collections.--Sarah Michaelis, Sun Prairie P.L., WI
Table of Contents
Hunting Girliness | p. 5 |
Stained Skin | p. 8 |
Muslim Girl with White Guys, Ending at the Edge of a Ridge | p. 10 |
Recognized Language | p. 12 |
Etymology of Hair | p. 14 |
Shaytan Sneaks Bites of My Tuna Sandwich | p. 16 |
Muslim with Dog | p. 18 |
Dream Interpretation [Apricot] | p. 20 |
Pig Flesh | p. 21 |
Portrait of This Country | p. 24 |
When People Are Cursed | p. 27 |
Feast, Beginning w/ a Kissed Blade | p. 29 |
Hunger Wraps Himself | p. 33 |
Guide to Gardening Your Roots | p. 36 |
Operation Restoring Hope | p. 40 |
Yemen Rising as Poorest Country in the World | p. 43 |
Coffee Arabica as a Maelstrom of Endless Aftershocks | p. 45 |
The Snapping Turtles in Ta'iz Have Beards | p. 48 |
Dream Interpretation [Fox] | p. 50 |
At the summit, he finds a nest | p. 51 |
Hidden Bombs in My Coochie | p. 55 |
Home Security After 9/11 | p. 58 |
My President Asks Me about Redemption | p. 61 |
Heritage Emissary | p. 65 |
I Thicken the Room w/ Dim Mirrors & an Altar of Aliens, Waiting for a Sign | p. 67 |
My Father Finds Home through the Birds | p. 69 |
Dream Interpretation [Sea] | p. 72 |
After Running Away from Another Marriage Proposal | p. 73 |
I Crack an Egg | p. 75 |
Middle Eastern Music | p. 78 |
Please Take Off Your Shoes Before Entering | p. 80 |
And That Fast, You're Thinking about Their Bodies | p. 83 |
Why I Am Silent about the Lament | p. 84 |
Catasterism | p. 85 |
When White Boys Ask to See My Hair | p. 88 |
Ode to Bodega Cats | p. 89 |
Notes | p. 93 |
Acknowledgments | p. 97 |