Arabia (not so) Deserta

This is a treasure, a caravanserai of a book, erudite, personal, enlightening. Pierre Joris poet, translator, editor, anthologist scholar, flaneur par excellence--is an incomparable and friendly guide to these realms, his lifelong passion and esprit manifest and up for the rigor of this vast deserta. At hand a portable delight and piercing explosion of nomadic poetics with forays into prosody (the rihlas, and the muallaqat, the hanging poems at the Kaaba (black stone) in Mecca, politics (Arab Spring, see Adonis's comment that Jerusalem is the most "savage city in the world") and culture (a visit to mystic Fez and its living streets), sprinkled with lambent poems of a range of women throughout.

We learn that "troubadour" comes not from "trobare" but from Arabic "tarab" to sing, which suggests a musical poetry that produces an exalted state, and also links to Lorca's "duende" connecting back to Al-Andalus. Anything that gets to the root is good gnosis in these times where, as with all the rest, the intellectual and spiritual battle seems to be with colonial presumption if not genocide. We examine the "melancholic archeology" of many poets including Adonis, Adbellatif Laabi, Mahmoud Darwish, Mohammed Bennis, Habib Tengour. Reference to western authors thickens the mix: Celan, The Beats, Paul Bowles, Charles Olson. If you were someone involved with literary infrastructure, bringing poets and writers of Arabic origin to the US after 9/11 was total anathema. Checkpoints were on "brown alert" and Lynne Cheney had her Campus Watch radar out for subversives here and abroad. This obsessive racism sadly continues under today's US zenophobic policies, only getting worse. Pierre Joris's scintillating Arabia is a salient antidote for our Antithesis Reality.

Anne Waldman

Far too few U.S. based poets have had long-term interest and involvement in Arabic culture. Given that Pierre Joris is one of those few, this collection of essays, translations, ruminations, and encounters provides a timely opportunity to engage with someone whose own poetics have been formed by this immersion and familiarity. This collection traverses decades at the crossroads of political, linguistic, cultural, and experiential collision, collusion, and cooperation, providing readers ready to journey through this terrain much to contemplate and learn about.

Ammiel Alcalay