"Luminous language, imperishable lines."

December 10, 2021 11:12 PM

Sofia Samatar (The White Review, 11/2021), "Standing at the Ruins": "Placing these poems together, juxtaposing these different landscapes, gives me a sense of planetary mourning. Their elegiac power has intensified over time, for the world they assume will never change is no longer here today ... Imru al-Qays helps me imagine a capacious, crackling spiral, flexible enough to survive ..." English & Arabic versions. The Wanderer Project. "Climate Change in the Age of Numbing." Frankenstein 1818 & 1831 (diffs). Vesuvius in Eruption. Frankenstein in Baghdad excerpt 1 & 2. The Ruins. "Letter from Joanna." "Feeling Kinky about Environmentalism." Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial. Samatar previously.
posted by Wobbuffet (5 comments total)

This is just to say Sofia Samatar is one of the best and it's bizarre to me that she doesn't get ten times more attention.

And thanks for the post.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:37 AM on December 11, 2021

This was beautiful, thank you.
posted by congen at 11:07 AM on December 11, 2021

Really, everyone should read Hydriotaphia. It's one of the most remarkable things ever written in English.
posted by kickingtheground at 1:00 PM on December 11, 2021

Gorgeous links thank you!
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 6:52 PM on December 11, 2021

what an extraordinary text. I’d come across the Frankenstein connection in Amitav Ghosh, but this roams to entirely further realms. thanks so much for such a discovery.
posted by progosk at 12:48 AM on December 12, 2021