by Patty Paine (Editor), Samia Touati (Editor), Jeff Lodge (Editor)
I chose to feature this poetry book, not because I want to incur the wrath of “rag-head” haters, but because I want the opportunity to stop the hate by inviting understanding of people of the Middle East. Understanding is, to me, the bridge to embracing differences and cultivating tolerance, and poetry best touches the core of culture provoking that internal resonance that’s key to empathy. –D. L. Keur, The Deepening
ABOUT THIS POETRY BOOK
Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry brings readers into the rich and vibrant world of the Arabian Gulf, offering an understanding of the people and culture of the region through poetry. A handful of anthologies represent the Middle East in general, or individual Middle Eastern countries; however, this is the first collection that presents poets from across the Arabian Gulf. The Arabian Gulf has a distinct and deeply rooted tradition of poetry and a thriving contemporary literary community. This anthology offers an exciting collection of poems by poets from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Gathering the Tide makes available to English-language readers the important literary work being undertaken by the poets of the Arabian Gulf. The anthology includes poetry from established and rising poets in the region and encompasses a wide range of poems and poets, from the work of Laala Kashef Alghata, a nineteen-year-old poet from Bahrain, to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Emir of Dubai. While several of the poets composed their poems in English, most of the poems were translated from Arabic to English by an exceptional team of accomplished translators. The Gulf has attracted global attention for its explosive growth, and the poets within contemplate everything from souks to shopping malls, to love, loss, and solitude, to war, peace and beyond.
In Till I End My Song, Harold Bloom, the foremost literary critic of our time, has culled a delightful anthology of the final works from one hundred of the greatest, most influential poets throughout history. These poems, sometimes the literal end and at other times the imagined conclusion to a poetic career, offer a lens through which to contemplate the enduring nature of art and the inevitability of death. Poems by T. S. Eliot, Alexander Pope, W. B. Yeats, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and William Shakespeare are featured here, as are works from distinguished but long-neglected poets such as Conrad Aiken, William Cowper, Edwin Arlington Robinson, George Meredith, and Louis MacNeice. An authoritative collection, Till I End My Song will reverberate long into the coming silence.
Over the last decade equal rights for same-sex couples has proven to be one of this country’s most pressing political and civil rights issues. The Air We Breathe–its title drawn from a Langston Hughes poem–brings together 27 visual artists and seven poets who offer eloquent and challenging contributions to the cause of marriage equality for same-sex couples. Works on paper by Laylah Ali, D-L Alvarez, Simon Fujiwara, Robert Gober, Raymond Pettibon, Amy Sillman, Allison Smith and 20 other equally compelling contemporary artists are interspersed with new poetry by John Ashbery, Kevin Killian, Ariana Reines, Anne Waldman and others. With essays by three further prominent, outspoken writers–Eileen Myles, Martha Nussbaum and Frank Rich–the book and the exhibition it accompanies will help generate awareness and encourage dialogue about discrimination many citizens encounter on a daily basis because, as Hughes wrote, “equality is in the air we breathe.”