Talking with Poet Hannah VanderHart about Her Illuminating Debut Collection, âWhat Pecan Lightâ
It would be wrong to call Hannah VanderHartâs poems masterful, though at times it is tempting to, anyway.
In âWhen Someone Says a Poem Is Masterful,â a poem near the end of her first full-length collection,
What Pecan Light, the speaker asks, âwho wants to master the body of a poem? (no one should).â A beat later, an admission: âI have a master in my family tree / Jack Allums / he will always be there.â
These are poems that meet the white reader on a common ground, sometimes even the literal ground of a chicken coop, as in âWhen We Are Not Talking About Race In The South We Are Talking About Race In The South,â and then swiftly ask what is it to farm and be farmed, to cultivate and to reproduce a system of violence.
Credit: Tanya Rosen-Jones
Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom and has lived transnationally in the United States, Canada, India, France, and the Middle East. His books encompass multiple genres, including the volumes of poetry
Inquisition,
The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award;
The Fortieth Day;
Bright Felon and
Wind Instrument. His novels include the recently published
The Secret Room: A String Quartet and among his books of essays are the hybrid memoir
Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies and
Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice. He is also an accomplished translator (of Marguerite Duras, Sohrab Sepehri, Ananda Devi, Mahmoud Chokrollahi and others) and an editor of several anthologies and books of criticism. After a career in public policy and organizing, Ali taught at various colleges and universities, including Oberlin College, Davidson College, St. Mary’s College of California, and
Swan Song
Durham, NC: Bull City Press, 2020. 40 pages. $12.00.
In my first encounter with Armen Davoudian, the poet was already saying goodbye. “Wake-Up Call,” an elegant sonnet that is both self-elegy and familial love poem, describes with a disembodied intimacy Davoudian’s parents preparing breakfast, only to discover that he has disappeared:
I can hear
around my head, against the coming light,
for any moment now they will open the door
and lift the covers and find that I’m not there.
What I would come to admire the most in Davoudian’s debut collection
Swan Song is concentrated in these concluding lines: a voice at once direct and elliptical, simultaneously announcing itself as inaugural and valedictory.