Customs

Poems

By: Solmaz Sharif

Narrated by: Solmaz Sharif

I said what I meant

but I said it

in velvet. I said it in feathers.

And so one poet reminded me

Remember what you are to them.

Poodle, I said.

And remember what they are to you.

Meat.

—from “Patronage”

In Customs, Solmaz Sharif examines what it means to exist in the nowhere of the arrivals terminal, a continual series of checkpoints, officers, searches, and questionings that become a relentless experience of America. With resignation and austerity, these poems trace a pointed indoctrination to the customs of the nation-state and the English language, and the realities they impose upon the imagination, the paces they put us through. While Sharif critiques the culture of performed social skills and poetry itself—its foreclosures, affects, successes—she begins to write her way out to the other side of acceptability and toward freedom.

Customs is a brilliant, excoriating new collection by a poet whose unfolding works are among the groundbreaking literature of our time.

©2022 Solmaz Sharif (P)2022 Recorded Books

Not for me

The author, who says her parents were born in Iran and she was born in Turkey, seems to be very angry and she does not seem to like America or its people. Personally, I have had enough of the middle east hate. She calls us barbarians. I try to keep an open mind, so I listened to the whole book. I regretted doing so.