BOOK REVIEW: SHEEMA KALBASI'S ECHOES IN EXILE
The simplicity of Sheema Kalbasi's work masks an anger that simmers below the surface of many of her poems, but the anger is tempered with profound sadness at the senselessness of it all; her pity for those helpless innocents who suffer most and are forgotten all too soon is always uppermost. Wilfred Owen, probably the greatest anti-war poet ever, wrote about his poetry that 'My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.' In her poem Nothing Kalbasi writes the line; 'children die, and journalists are filming for a deadline'… simple words that encapsulate the futility of it all, words that move me deeply because like Owen's work, the poetry is in the pity…
But these 'Echoes in Exile', whilst they reflect greatly on war, injustice and sorrow, contain also touching snapshots of her family, hymns to other exiles, reflections on humanity, explorations of her own sensuality and glimpses into her private meditations, at times she lets the reader get so close that I feel that she is literally reaching out to touch me as in Mama in the War when she refers to her 'Mama' and to: 'all those women/ who protected/ and still defend their children/ against the blinded-with-hatred/ soldiers of death/ all around the world.' I want to stop, in fact I did stop when reading these words to simply speak aloud the word; 'Yes!' Throughout it all however the poet seems somehow isolated, as though she is aware of the unique insight that she is privileged to voice, an insight encapsulated in the phrase; 'The existence of the non-existence- human rights' which she refers to in her long poem,.
The poems in this magnificent collection are expansive and profound and yet are also, in one sense, ambiguous. Ambiguous in that they cry out for an audience and yet seem to know that the audience that will receive them is the audience of the already-converted; not the ones whom at times Kalbasi is almost screaming at. These poems deserve an audience who will appreciate their simplicity and also their depth and yet they are aimed at those whose ears are stuffed and blocked, ears that would never allow Kalbasi's words to enter; ears stuffed with tainted paper money or with rich silks plundered from foreign lands… therein lies their inherent ambiguity, therein lies the tragedy and the pity of the poetry…
I find myself memorizing large sections without even realizing I am doing it and while exploring these memories repeatedly in moments of solitude, words and phrases return to haunt me provocatively. If you are among the few who know that poetry is the highest of all the arts, if you are one of those special people who need stimulating with an excess of profundity, then this is a work you will cherish and return to time and again; with love in your heart and with your perceptions multiplied a thousand fold.
The simplicity of Sheema Kalbasi's work masks an anger that simmers below the surface of many of her poems, but the anger is tempered with profound sadness at the senselessness of it all; her pity for those helpless innocents who suffer most and are forgotten all too soon is always uppermost. Wilfred Owen, probably the greatest anti-war poet ever, wrote about his poetry that 'My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.' In her poem Nothing Kalbasi writes the line; 'children die, and journalists are filming for a deadline'… simple words that encapsulate the futility of it all, words that move me deeply because like Owen's work, the poetry is in the pity…
But these 'Echoes in Exile', whilst they reflect greatly on war, injustice and sorrow, contain also touching snapshots of her family, hymns to other exiles, reflections on humanity, explorations of her own sensuality and glimpses into her private meditations, at times she lets the reader get so close that I feel that she is literally reaching out to touch me as in Mama in the War when she refers to her 'Mama' and to: 'all those women/ who protected/ and still defend their children/ against the blinded-with-hatred/ soldiers of death/ all around the world.' I want to stop, in fact I did stop when reading these words to simply speak aloud the word; 'Yes!' Throughout it all however the poet seems somehow isolated, as though she is aware of the unique insight that she is privileged to voice, an insight encapsulated in the phrase; 'The existence of the non-existence- human rights' which she refers to in her long poem,.
The poems in this magnificent collection are expansive and profound and yet are also, in one sense, ambiguous. Ambiguous in that they cry out for an audience and yet seem to know that the audience that will receive them is the audience of the already-converted; not the ones whom at times Kalbasi is almost screaming at. These poems deserve an audience who will appreciate their simplicity and also their depth and yet they are aimed at those whose ears are stuffed and blocked, ears that would never allow Kalbasi's words to enter; ears stuffed with tainted paper money or with rich silks plundered from foreign lands… therein lies their inherent ambiguity, therein lies the tragedy and the pity of the poetry…
I find myself memorizing large sections without even realizing I am doing it and while exploring these memories repeatedly in moments of solitude, words and phrases return to haunt me provocatively. If you are among the few who know that poetry is the highest of all the arts, if you are one of those special people who need stimulating with an excess of profundity, then this is a work you will cherish and return to time and again; with love in your heart and with your perceptions multiplied a thousand fold.
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