Keynote
Khaled Mattawa’s poetry contains “the complexity of a transnational identity” (MacArthur Fellowship citation)
Book Title
Fugitive Atlas
Subtitle
Poems
Cover Image
- “Fugitive Atlas is an intuitive echo on what it means to be human in the time of war and forced emigration. And so, Mattawa’s poetry calls for the kind of attentiveness that results in a wide expanse of language—beyond borders.”—Orion
Poem Excerpt
we have after
children the
born here sea
now still
at night we at
watch them sea
to learn under
from their the
breathing sea
—“Afterward Breathing”
Body
Fugitive Atlas is a sweeping, impassioned account of refugee crises, military occupations, and ecological degradation, an acute and probing journey through a world in upheaval. Khaled Mattawa’s chorus of speakers finds moments of profound solace in searching for those lost—in elegy and prayer—even when the power of poetry and faith seems incapable of providing salvation.
With extraordinary formal virtuosity and global scope, these poems turn not to lament for those regions charted as theaters of exploitation and environmental malpractice but to a poignant amplification of the lives, dreams, and families that exist within them. In this exquisite collection, Mattawa asks how we are expected to endure our times, how we inherit the journeys of our ancestors, and how we let loose those we love into an unpredictable world.
With extraordinary formal virtuosity and global scope, these poems turn not to lament for those regions charted as theaters of exploitation and environmental malpractice but to a poignant amplification of the lives, dreams, and families that exist within them. In this exquisite collection, Mattawa asks how we are expected to endure our times, how we inherit the journeys of our ancestors, and how we let loose those we love into an unpredictable world.
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About the Author
Credit: Khairy Shaban
Praise
- “[Mattawa] blends the keen craft and heartfelt examination of human suffering that won him a MacArthur Fellowship [in Fugitive Atlas].”—Library Journal
- “In poems that tenderly call us to action, Mattawa awakens readers to the human and geographical devastation wrought by the tendency to “other” people. Fugitive Atlas is a collaborative prayer for a shattered earth.”—Ploughshares
- “[A] melodious collection. . . . [Khaled Mattawa] becomes a cartographer of reality across many countries, poetic landscapes, and styles. In a series of imaginative and provocative poems, he asks us to consider the borders — at times government ordained, at times personally, financially, and culturally imposed — that exist off the map and apply meaning to our real lives.”—Chapter16
- “These are poems of exceptionally real human and political consequence, filled with news that the news does not speak. Khaled Mattawa’s Fugitive Atlas is a work of uncommon, poignant character, of resonance and depth.”—Alberto Ríos
