Rumpus Reviews Solmaz Sharif's Look

At the Rumpus, Brandon Amico reviews Solmaz Sharif's newest collection of poetry, Look. A response to her life in the United States after her family was displaced by conflict, this new collection published by Graywolf Press is, in Amico's words: "a book that disrupts, fervently and effectively." More:

“Until now, now that I’ve reached my thirties: / All my Muse’s poetry has been harmless: / American and diplomatic.” It’s hard not to hear underpinning this passage, which opens the poem “Desired Appreciation,” the suggestion that for something to be accepted as American it must go along with the current, must uphold the status quo—the exact opposite of how art functions, which is by disruption. And lest there be any misunderstanding, I’ll clarify—Solmaz Sharif’s Look is a book that disrupts, fervently and effectively. The poems within are allergic to complacency and linguistic hypnosis; they constantly reach, inquire, prod, and wonder—sometimes with force—and refuse to allow the reader to be lulled into the sense that everything is okay in the world.

The first words of Look make the author’s intents known in no uncertain terms: “It matters what you call a thing.” Unflinching is a term overused when describing writers, particularly poets, but if there’s a book deserving of this phrase, it’s Look; Solmaz Sharif is insistent that the reader understand that there is something awry, something lurking below the surface level of today’s media and discourse, and she’s going after it without hesitation.

Continue at the Rumpus.