E-mails from Scheherazad (Contemporary Poetry Series)
by MOHJA KAHF

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Book Reviews of E-mails from Scheherazad (Contemporary Poetry Series)

Book Review: Poetry that explores the immigrant experience in the U.S.
Summary: 5 Stars

Kahf's poems cover a number of themes: the immigrant experience in America, cultural difference, women's issues, war, violence, and poetry itself. There are several poems that deal with the issue of the veil traditionally worn by Muslim women. A good representative poem is "My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears," a striking story of cross-cultural tension.

Kahf's language is passionate, sometimes witty, and always clear and accessible. Her poems are richly spiced with many cultural references: to Wal-Mart, Robert Frost, Lt. Uhura, the "Rubayat" of Omar Khayyam, MTV, etc. She is particularly searing when reflecting on living in a post-9/11 world. Her compassionate but critical eye captures both the joy and tragedy of life. Highly recommended for college classes, book circles, or individual reading.

Summary of E-mails from Scheherazad (Contemporary Poetry Series)

Kahf's carefully crafted poems do not speak only to important issues of ethnicity, gender, and religious diversity in America, but also to universal human themes of family and kinship, friendship, and the search for a place to pray. She chronicles the specific griefs and pleasures of the immigrant and writes an amulet for womanly power in the face of the world's terrors. Her poetic energy is provocative and sassy, punctuated now and then with a darker poem of elegiac sadness or refined rage.

20th Century Books

• Literature & Fiction > World Literature > United States > Poetry
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• Poetry > Anthologies
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• Single Authors > United States