A Dress of Locusts

(Paperback)

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'Safa Khatibs poems open my eyes, sharpen my ears' SAFIA ELHILLO
'With a meditative clarity, Khatib calls us to account for the ways we have and continue to turn eyes away from the historic now' NIKI HERD

An electrifying debut collection exploring language and revolution, by an extraordinary new poetic talent

Woven from threads of Aramaic, Spanish, Ancient Greek, Sumerian and Arabic, A Dress of Locusts is an unforgettable song cycle in which the living and dead sing back and forth to one another. Here, Safa Khatib journeys across the possibilities of language and self, asking us to dwell in the thresholds between the 'old' and the 'new'.

Reviews

I am spellbound by these poems, their heartfelt percussion, their clean slice of precision. Safa Khatibs poems open my eyes, sharpen my ears. Here is a poet I will read in every eternity -- SAFIA ELHILLO, author of Girls That Never Die
A Dress of Locusts suggests that memory can be ephemeral and speech an effort not quite realized. And yet, for Khatib, these realities are no excuse. Without admonishment, but with a meditative clarity, Khatib calls us to account for the ways we have and continue to turn eyes away from the historic now -- NIKI HERD, author of The Stuff of Hollywood
Safa Khatibs poems take us everywhere and nowhere. They take us to the river and bring us back thirsty. They are suspended in the in-between in the pockets of the body, in late visits to the ruins, in the phone calls demanding a life together. Khatib does not shy away from Empire by hiding in the interior, she blurs both topographies into one -- MONA KAREEM, author of I Will Not Fold These Maps

Author Bio

Safa Khatib is a poet, translator, teacher and daughter of South Indian immigrants. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals, including Words Without Borders, the Baffler, the Kenyon Review and the White Review. She is the recipient of support from the US Fulbright Program and the Stadler Center for Poetry, among other institutions. She is currently a PhD student in the Track for International Writers in the department of Comparative Literature at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.