Look: Poems

 Look: Poems by Somaz Sharif, 98 pages.

A beautiful, powerful collection of poems. The poet was born in Istanbul to Iranian parents, and she gives us a different perspective on the war on terror, and the wars in the Middle East. With Sharif as our guide, the violence and the chaos are presented from the point of view of people and families who find themselves too close to it all.
The poem "Reaching Guantanomo" takes the form of a series of letters written to an unknown person named Salim, with many of the words and thouhgts redacted by an useen hand. Though the subsequent letters answer questions presumably asked, we see only part of one side of the conversation.
"Stateless Persons" recounts scattered conversations from far-off places, with no good news:

"Our phone would

rarely ring. I have no ear

          for the mu-

          sic here. They would

bury one then another, the eldest son dropping

in

the grave to

comfort the corpse, calling us

          months later

          because we were

exiles, were vagabonds, fugitives, past Sierras,

past

oil rigs

in Texas, or waiting for

          the windshield

          to clear of frost,

two expanding ovals where the Buick’s heat hit, our

eyes"

Sharif has given us a compelling and wonderful book of poems.