Rita Dove selects Poem by Chad Abushanab for The New York Times Magazine

May 17, 2019

Cover of The Last Visit by Chad Abushanab

Rita Dove offers this insightful introduction to Chad Abushanab’s poem, “A Voice From the Wreck”:

The speaker in Chad Abushanab’s poem is neither witness nor victim but oracle. Staggered lines and irregular rhymes offer little reprieve from a world spellbound by despair and pervasive violence. Classic Greek hexameters alternate with shorter, bumpier cadences; each return to the left margin allows us just a gasp of air before snapping us back as desolation sweeps in once more. Hopelessness galvanized by rancor, retribution on a loop: The damage runs deep. This voice will haunt for a long time.

Read the poem online here.

 

 

Filed under: Poetry