Winner, Arab American National Museum's 2015 George Ellenbogen Poetry Award
Tahrir Suiteis a book-length poem that contemplates immigration, homeland, and diaspora in the twenty-first century. The poem, inspired by recent events in Egypt, cycles through the journey of two Egyptians moving across borders, languages, cultures, landscapes, and political systems while their life in the U.S. diaspora evolves and their home country undergoes revolutionary change.
Written from a perspective and about a place that is virtually unexplored in contemporary American poetry,Tahrir Suiteworks to capture the complicated essence of what it means to be from a specific place that is experiencing such radical change and how our understandings of “home” and “place” constantly evolve.Tahrir Suiteis a musical meditation on what it means to be a global citizen in contemporary times.
Tahrir Suiteis a meditation of mainly tristichs that create an Epic poem rich with symbolic imagery. The ancient namesake, Isis, comes to the contemporary forefront of Egypt’s calamity, bringing the necessary hope, and often overlooked female voice to the center of this very relevant and sublime work of poetry.
Matthew Shenoda is the author of the poetry collectionsSeasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone(2009) andSomewhere Else(2005), which won the American Book Award. He is currently Associate Professor and Interim Chair of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago.
I: The Eruption
II: The Emergence
III: The Migration
IV: The Settling
Notes
Acknowledgements
About the Author
“Matthew Shenoda’s stunning third collection,Tahrir Suite, is unlike any other work in contemporary American poetry. This powerfull£é
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