Customs

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlisted for the 2022 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize A New Yorker Essential Read of 2022 A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2022 An NPR Best Book of 2022 A Literary Hub Best Reviewed Poetry Collection of 2022 _______________ Witty and incisive [Sharif] masterfully traverses the landscape of exile and all its complicated grief New York Times _______________ The devastating second collection by Solmaz Sharif, author of Look, a National Book Award finalist With Customs, Solmaz Sharif offers a series of poetic refusals, weighing nuanced questions about what it means to belong to a place. In the face of hard borders these poems seek a reckoning with the structures, in society, in language itself, by which these limits act on us. Sharif examines what it means to exist in the nowhere of the arrivals terminal; to navigate a continual series of checkpoints, officers, searches, and questionings that can become a relentless challenge; a mutating shibboleth. Through the poet's adept balancing of tonal and formal elements, these poems interrogate the customs of the nation-state, of the English language, of the paces these systems put us through. But this work is not enjoined to a hopeless quest. Instead, the propulsive force that informs each line, each white space, and punctuation mark, is a powerfully galvanizing and healing force. Customs reminds us of the generative possibilities of restlessness, of seeking in each poem to refresh what it is a poem can be and do.

Reviews

Witty and incisive [Sharif] masterfully traverses the landscape of exile and all its complicated grief * New York Times *
This collection, while shaking an elegant fist at the wide hallways / of a great endowment, is a useful dispatch from within such rooms * GUARDIAN, Best recent poetry *
Striking * BOOKSELLER *
I really love ... Solmaz Sharifs Customs. I love the books precision and truthfulness and find I continue to turn to it for something like help -- R. O. Kwan * The Cut *
Sharif masterfully blends, develops, and transforms her imagery throughout Customs in such a seamless and unexpected way that the reader effortlessly follows these gorgeous, golden, and intelligent threads all the way to the brink of epiphany and beyond * New York Review of Books *
Rooted in unrootedness; migration, borders and displacement are all themes in Sharifs poems. This book asks us to consider how powerful language can be, and to use it carefully * NPR, Books We Love *
As she masterfully traverses the landscape of exile and all its complicated grief, Sharif manages, with conviction and consistency, to make the reader feel welcome * New York Times Book Review *
The ostensible clarity of borders and checkpoints gives way to a terrain of fundamental uncertainty, a geography of elusive thresholds * New Yorker, Best Books of 2022 *
Dazzling . . . Sharifs language is spare and all the more sharp for what remains, for all that she has left out, as the sculptor does with a slab of marble. . . . This is poetry this is a poet that marvels us in manners minute and majestic -- Mandana Chaffa * Ploughshares *
Sharif masterfully blends, develops, and transforms her imagery throughout Customs in such a seamless and unexpected way that the reader effortlessly follows these gorgeous, golden, and intelligent threads all the way to the brink of epiphany and beyond * New York Journal of Books *
Blistering in its clear-sightedness, this collection offers a fierce, beautiful closing that dares to imagine a beckoning, a way. A bold and uncompromising book with virtuosic emotional range; highly recommended * Library Journal, starred review *
Sharif's commanding voice reverberates throughout this complex and confident collection * Publishers Weekly, starred review *
Sharif demonstrates remarkable talent in her ability to so deftly portray the traumatizing balance required to live in the West with deep roots in Iran * Booklist, starred review *
Spectacular . . . In a massive feat, Customs continues the work of Look, pushing its mission forward with a new slate of sharp, memorable pieces that are set to inspire yet another generation * Cleveland Review of Books *
Sharifs ruminations on language in Customs - and how to keep it alive and potent - cement her position as one of the most thoughtful poets working today * Harvard Review *

Author Bio

Solmaz Sharif was raised by Iranian parents in the United States. Her first collection, Look, was a National Book Award finalist. She is currently the Shirley Shenker Assistant Professor of English at UC Berkeley.