A chilling poetic reflection on the world we have inherited and the destructions that made it.
To confront time, pre-modern Arabic poems often began with the poet standing before the ruins, real and imagined, of a beloved’s home. In Postcards from the Underworld, Sinan Antoon works in that tradition, observing the detritus of his home city, Baghdad, where he survived two wars—the Iran-Iraq War of 1980 and the First Gulf War of 1991—and which, after he left, he watched from afar being attacked during the US invasion in 2003. Antoon’s poems confront violence and force us not to look away as he traces death’s haunting presence in the world. Nature offers consolation, and flowers and butterflies are the poet’s interlocutors, but they too cannot escape ruin. Composed in Arabic and translated into English by the poet himself, Postcards from the Underworld is a searing meditation on the destruction of humans, habitats, and homes.
To confront time, pre-modern Arabic poems often began with the poet standing before the ruins, real and imagined, of a beloved’s home. In Postcards from the Underworld, Sinan Antoon works in that tradition, observing the detritus of his home city, Baghdad, where he survived two wars—the Iran-Iraq War of 1980 and the First Gulf War of 1991—and which, after he left, he watched from afar being attacked during the US invasion in 2003. Antoon’s poems confront violence and force us not to look away as he traces death’s haunting presence in the world. Nature offers consolation, and flowers and butterflies are the poet’s interlocutors, but they too cannot escape ruin. Composed in Arabic and translated into English by the poet himself, Postcards from the Underworld is a searing meditation on the destruction of humans, habitats, and homes.
Table of Contents
Prayer
Psalm (I)
The Day
The New God
From the Lost Gospels
From Eve’s Confessions
Divine Failure
I Hear It
Blind Song
The Saz Player
Garment
A Heavy Heart
Visitation
In my next life
A Feather
Autumn in Heaven
Train of the Dead
Interval
Murmur
Black Butterfly
Birth Certificate
Another Day
Rest Your Horns
The Poet
Slow Mail
Days Like This
Dismemberment
A Head
Afterwords
An Ordinary Day
Letter to al-Mutanabbi
A Photograph
One Night; In Many Cities
Heard on New Year’s Eve
A Handbag in China Town
A Butterfly in New York
Winesong
I Don’t Visit My Mother
Angels on my Ceiling
Angelus Novus
An Alternative History
Crossing
Phosphorus
Crazy Horse
Anamorphosis?/Iraq
We Shall Wait
Letter to My Ancestor
The Angel’s Trumpet
The Day’s Catch
This Was Not Written
A Postcard from the Underworld
Nostalgia for Light
A New Sun
Psalm (II)
Scene
Wars
A Prisoner’s Song
To an Iraqi Infant
A Prism; Wet with Wars
Delving
Phantasmagoria I
Phantasmagoria II
Sifting
The Milky Way
Wrinkles on the Wind’s Forehead
Strings
A Sign
From the Diary of a Ghost
Just Another Evening (in black & you)
Absence
Afterword
Psalm (I)
The Day
The New God
From the Lost Gospels
From Eve’s Confessions
Divine Failure
I Hear It
Blind Song
The Saz Player
Garment
A Heavy Heart
Visitation
In my next life
A Feather
Autumn in Heaven
Train of the Dead
Interval
Murmur
Black Butterfly
Birth Certificate
Another Day
Rest Your Horns
The Poet
Slow Mail
Days Like This
Dismemberment
A Head
Afterwords
An Ordinary Day
Letter to al-Mutanabbi
A Photograph
One Night; In Many Cities
Heard on New Year’s Eve
A Handbag in China Town
A Butterfly in New York
Winesong
I Don’t Visit My Mother
Angels on my Ceiling
Angelus Novus
An Alternative History
Crossing
Phosphorus
Crazy Horse
Anamorphosis?/Iraq
We Shall Wait
Letter to My Ancestor
The Angel’s Trumpet
The Day’s Catch
This Was Not Written
A Postcard from the Underworld
Nostalgia for Light
A New Sun
Psalm (II)
Scene
Wars
A Prisoner’s Song
To an Iraqi Infant
A Prism; Wet with Wars
Delving
Phantasmagoria I
Phantasmagoria II
Sifting
The Milky Way
Wrinkles on the Wind’s Forehead
Strings
A Sign
From the Diary of a Ghost
Just Another Evening (in black & you)
Absence
Afterword