Norbert Hirschhorn is seriously impressed by Mona Arshiâs new collection
Dear Big Gods
Mona Arshi
Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 978-1-78694-215-9
60 pages ÂŁ9.99
âLyric poetryâ has typically been defined in opposition to âdramaticâ and ânarrativeâ verse. From the Greek root, lyric poetry is meant to be melodic, personal, expressing mood and emotion, often using traditional forms. Unfortunately, by this broad definition nearly all modern poetry is âlyricalâ, but the least constrained poems today are scarcely melodic, rather solipsistic, and long. (One of my best teachers said of a well-written lyric poem, âGet in quickly, get out quickly.â)
Mona Arshiâs poems are purely lyrical in the best sense. Each poem carries its own weight and musical pleasure much like a Bach partita. By that analogy, each is densely, compactly written, with overtones. The entire collection is like a suite, best appreciated on several readings. Consider the âbookendâ poems: The opening poem, âLittle Prayerâ, is a humble supplication (note the hesitant lineation):
Itâs me
again.
This time Iâm a wren.
The title poem, âDear Big Gods, which closes the book, slants right to left like a hemi-pyramid:
all you have to do
is show yourself
in case you hear us
we are so small
and fenceless in the shade
throw us a hook
when you canâŚ
Here is the supplicant walking backwards out of the temple in reverence. Note the wonderful use of line organisation and line-breaks which enact the prayer by the poemâs own shape. As Robert Frost put it, ‘Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.â
But the book is not simply a collection of lovely lyrics. There is a story embedded, with hints spread through various poems: the poet converses with a brother who has died, the way one shares news with a beloved in the grave:
I hope itâs fine to contact you, to tell you that I still watch the gaps in the carriages/ and
listen out for âthe service has been disruptedâ announcement, for some other poor sisterâs/
new news⌠I see your face from time to time, especially on trains⌠(âFive-Year Updateâ).
The poet employs magical thinking to save would-be suicides. In âThe Switchâ, in a block of prose (here truncated):
I found the Switch at precisely 6:05 pm. The
Switch of all Switches; the primal SwitchâŚ
I thought of all the
good I could do with this Switch. I travelled
to the Jumperâs Cliff, and waited for the sight of
live bodies, and switched them all off before
they did it.
Did I say âproseâ? Look at the line break, âbefore/ they did it.â
The brother reappears to instruct her about the fluid border between life and death. In âA Pear from the Afterlifeâ:
Our faces in the window float
like balloons in the glass.
In his deathless,
he never looked more alive.
Sis, you gotta let go
of this idea of definitive knowledge.
Donât look on it as a journey more
like a resettling or dusting off or
re-tuning of the radio.
There are elm trees here and these geckos
slip surreptitiously under the door
from my side to yours.
âToo bad you have to go back,â I say,
and he sighs like an old-man
impatiently re-teaching a child.
âBefore you go,â I say,
âWill you bring me a pear from
the afterlife or a ripe papaya or
even an accidental patch of clover,
something that can live
on my tiny balcony?â
At the risk of stereotyping, many of the poems have an Eastern sensibility; or perhaps ancient Greek; or Gaelic; or really from anywhere we acknowledge and allow spirits from other worlds to inhabit our own. Other poems adumbrate on the phenomenon, such as the poem titled by a news report from 2018, âIn Mexico the women are marrying trees.â Or, acknowledging the malevolent spirits, âThe Waspsâ, like the Furies, who attack a child en masse. Or the intelligences who live in other spaces of Earth, âNow I know the Truth about Octopuses (and the lies we tell our children)â. Or, âThe Liliesâ, in the poetâs âfirst tiny gardenâ where she cannot protect them from canker, but respects them even in their state of suspension: âI suppose I could have/ pulled up their sick stems/ or poisoned them from the bottle./ But I let them live on/ beauty-drained in their altar beds.â âAltarâ is the perfect word, suggesting sacrifice, gifts to gods.
I am in awe of this work.
London Grip Poetry Review – Mona Arshi
May 3, 2019 by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2019 • Tags: books, Norbert Hirschhorn, poetry • 0 Comments
Norbert Hirschhorn is seriously impressed by Mona Arshiâs new collection
âLyric poetryâ has typically been defined in opposition to âdramaticâ and ânarrativeâ verse. From the Greek root, lyric poetry is meant to be melodic, personal, expressing mood and emotion, often using traditional forms. Unfortunately, by this broad definition nearly all modern poetry is âlyricalâ, but the least constrained poems today are scarcely melodic, rather solipsistic, and long. (One of my best teachers said of a well-written lyric poem, âGet in quickly, get out quickly.â)
Mona Arshiâs poems are purely lyrical in the best sense. Each poem carries its own weight and musical pleasure much like a Bach partita. By that analogy, each is densely, compactly written, with overtones. The entire collection is like a suite, best appreciated on several readings. Consider the âbookendâ poems: The opening poem, âLittle Prayerâ, is a humble supplication (note the hesitant lineation):
The title poem, âDear Big Gods, which closes the book, slants right to left like a hemi-pyramid:
Here is the supplicant walking backwards out of the temple in reverence. Note the wonderful use of line organisation and line-breaks which enact the prayer by the poemâs own shape. As Robert Frost put it, ‘Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.â
But the book is not simply a collection of lovely lyrics. There is a story embedded, with hints spread through various poems: the poet converses with a brother who has died, the way one shares news with a beloved in the grave:
The poet employs magical thinking to save would-be suicides. In âThe Switchâ, in a block of prose (here truncated):
Did I say âproseâ? Look at the line break, âbefore/ they did it.â
The brother reappears to instruct her about the fluid border between life and death. In âA Pear from the Afterlifeâ:
At the risk of stereotyping, many of the poems have an Eastern sensibility; or perhaps ancient Greek; or Gaelic; or really from anywhere we acknowledge and allow spirits from other worlds to inhabit our own. Other poems adumbrate on the phenomenon, such as the poem titled by a news report from 2018, âIn Mexico the women are marrying trees.â Or, acknowledging the malevolent spirits, âThe Waspsâ, like the Furies, who attack a child en masse. Or the intelligences who live in other spaces of Earth, âNow I know the Truth about Octopuses (and the lies we tell our children)â. Or, âThe Liliesâ, in the poetâs âfirst tiny gardenâ where she cannot protect them from canker, but respects them even in their state of suspension: âI suppose I could have/ pulled up their sick stems/ or poisoned them from the bottle./ But I let them live on/ beauty-drained in their altar beds.â âAltarâ is the perfect word, suggesting sacrifice, gifts to gods.
I am in awe of this work.