The Endless Net

Ten years ago, I read Eliot Weinberger’s anthology, World Beat: International Poetry Now (New Directions, 2006). Looking back, I’m grateful, because that volume (re)introduced me to Israeli Aharon Shabtai, Iraqi Dunya Mikhail, and Chilean Nicanor…

Summer Poetry Reading List 2014

Ernesto Cardenal, Apocalypse and Other Poems Ernesto Cardenal, Flights of Victory/Vuelos de Victoria Ernesto Cardenal, From Nicaragua with Love Ernesto Cardenal, Golden UFOs: The Indian Poems Ernesto Cardenal, Pluriverse: New and Selected Poems Ernesto Cardenal, Psalms Ernesto Cardenal, The Doubtful Strait Ernesto Cardenal, Zero Hour…

Fifteen Iraqi Poets

So we need poets to challenge received notions, tell us what we don’t know, ask the questions we can’t answer, and wake us up to both doom and Utopia. — Translator and essayist Eliot Weinberger…

The Poet’s Work and the War’s Work

1. I first came across the poetry of Dunya Mikhail in Eliot Weinberger’s New Directions anthology, World Beat. An Iraqi Christian who speaks Arabic, Aramaic, and English, Mikhail ran afoul of the Iraqi authorities because of her…