Rita Dove selects Poem by Chad Abushanab for The New York Times Magazine
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.
Filed under: Poetry
