Look: Poems

These poems are built about the Dept. of Defense's Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, which enlighten, highlight, intrude upon, devastate throughout. The title "Look" is a military term meaning "In mine warfare, a period during which a mine circuit is receptive of an influence." In another passage, the poet defines"DESTRUCTION RADIUS limited to blast siteand not the brother abroadwho answers his phonethen falls against the counteror punches a cabinet door"Other poems are censored letters to someone in Guantanamo; another documents the words spoken in widely distributed videos in which soldiers return home to surprise family members, titled "Soldier, Home Early, Surprises His Wife in Chick-fil-A." This collection captures the relentess dripping loss of losing loved ones in a war one has no control over; of being suspect in a society where one's culture/ethnicity/language are those of the enemy; of the struggle to be human in the shadow of the indescribable trauma of the Iran-Iraq war, and maybe all war, all violence, all acts of "terrorism." Such a painful book. So valuable to feel this pain.

“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.The poems in Look are interested in challenging the way we hear about and consider war by dismantling the language used when describing or reporting on it. Formally, the poems are concerned with euphemistic language; thematically, they target large-scale complacency with war. When these two tie together is where the book derives its tension and strength(The above is an excerpt from my review of this book at the website The Rumpus; the remainder can be read here:[...])

In Jonathan Schell’s The Military Half, he discusses how the U.S. army used language to dampen the awful violence they were inflicting on Vietnamese civilians. “Hootch” was slang for a Vietnamese house. The more proper military term for a Vietnamese person’s home was a “structure.” It’s fun to burn a hootch; a duty to bomb a structure; unbearable to destroy someone’s home. The language desensitized the soldiers, so that they could joke about killing children, pregnant women, and the disabled and elderly without facing reality.My point is that our military’s issue with language goes way back. Words matter – these layers of euphemisms make way for real violence that harms real people. Solmaz Sharif offers a creative way to think about the effect that language has. She takes the words out of the perpetrators’ mouths and flings them back; she carves those words open and exposes the awful truths that lie inside.In “Inspiration Point, Berkeley,” she starts with, “Consider Kissinger: / the honorary Globetrotter / of Harlem who spins on fingertip / the world as balloon, the buffoon / erected and be-plaqued here … ” We honor a man with the blood of millions on his hands, and she compares this ingeniously to how “the conquistadors dropped /armored mission after armored mission after saints - / Luis Obispo, Francisco, etc.”Later in “Dependers/Immediate Family,” she discusses the violent hypermasculinity that parents instill in their (male) children, preparing them for war from the start, because they’ve been convinced that’s the honorable, patriotic way to raise a kid: “At the WWII Memorial, FDR thanks women / for sacrificing their sons / and their nylons.” And later: “Your crib, your teddy bears, / I want to say mother put a GUN / there, blocks and blocks of boys / with pistols in their lunch pails.”I have become convinced of the urgent importance of war poetry – of poems that expose or explore meaningful, tangible topics – of poems that offer new lenses through which to view these topics. Solmaz Sharif gives us new tools for thinking about U.S. presence in the Middle East, and what it means when a military can't use words that have direct meaning. I wish this collection had been available to us years ago.

Love Poems....

This book will haunt me, torment me, sadden me. And I am the richer and stronger for it. Read it.

5 stars, 500 stars, the whole of the Milky Way. I've never read a collection so conceptually well executed while so emotionally devastating. These poems are moving, eviscerating; they are lamentations, catalogs of both brutality and intimacy. Like all art that's truly haunted me, these poems made me upset, uncomfortable for what they make me question in my own presumptions and views. Calling a book 'important' feels like such a cliche these days, but this book is.

These poems are beautiful but also challenging. If you are reading from a position of privilege as I was (white, male, American) you will be forced to confront difficult truths. I am grateful for it. Above all it is beautiful poetry.

amazing read

im sorry but it's not what i expected from solmaz

This is an amazing collection of poems. Compelling reading, moving, emotional and thought provoking. I am sure Solmaz Sharif will influence the way I think about war and love. A totally remarkable debut collection of poetry from an award winning poet who makes her poetry accessible reading.

This book is thinner than expected and appears somewhat as a draft (not in a stylistic way). There are photo captions without the photo and there are notes to pages which do not exist. The poems themselves are fine, it is rare to see English language literature of the Iran-Iraq War, which is warmly appreciated, but it is a shame it is presented in this format. Not worth the price.

Great read. Thought provoking and deep. And the cover is very stylish would make a great gift.