Except for This Unseen Thread: Selected Poems
Except for This Unseen Thread: Selected Poems
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About the Book
Published in Baghdad in 2006, Falcon with Sun Overhead and The Age of Entertainment inspired a new generation of Iraqi poets, charmed by Ra’ad’s ability to write tender poems in times of destruction and fury. While many of his peers were writing poems about battlefields and faraway exiles, Ra’ad was looking closer in, at the loneliness of those left behind. Hailed for its cinematic portrait of Iraq under sanctions—the bread queues, busy cemeteries, empty schools, and the impossible departures and returns, Ra’ad’s work commemorates the wonders of a city staying still, one blink at a time. Except for This Unseen Thread, the first collection of Ra’ad’s work in English translation, is comprised of poems selected from both titles, with an introduction by the translator.
Author
Ra’ad Abdulqadir
Ra’ad Abdulqadir (1953–2003) is a pioneer of the Iraqi prose poem, the author of five poetry collections, and a lifelong editor of Aqlam, Iraq’s leading literary magazine. Except for This Unseen Thread: Selected Poems (Ugly Duckling Presse), translated by Mona Kareem, is his first collection in English translation.
Translator
Mona Kareem
Mona Kareem is the author of three poetry collections, and most recently, the trilingual chapbook Femme Ghosts (Publication Studio). She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and is a Translator-in-Residence at Princeton University. Her translations include Octavia Butler’s Kindred into Arabic (Takween Publishing); Ashraf Fayadh’s Instructions Within (The Operating System), longlisted for the BTBA 2017 awards; and Ra’ad Abdulqadir’s selected poems, Except for This Unseen Thread.
Praise
In the News
Excerpt
Weavers
Ancient and new
there is no difference
between one cloud and another
they’re all clouds
black and white
no difference, no difference
the same
green hope and dark green disappointment
open window and closed window
steel and air
no difference, no difference
the same
before rain or after rain
with or without sun
with the greenness of hope
or the greenness of disappointment
with or without dialogue
with life or with death,
no difference
except for this unseen thread
whether it is woven
by the ancient or the new
it is all weave
and they are all weavers.