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The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on Iraqi Nights by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and published by New Directions.

Here’s the beginning of Vince’s review:

In a culture that privileges prose, reviewing poetry is fairly pointless. And IÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™ve long since stopped caring about what the world reads and dropped the crusade to get Americans to read more poems. Part of the fault, as IÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™ve suggested in past reviews, rests with poets who seem hell-bent on insulating their art from the community at large, which is why Dunya MikhailÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™s work, which work sin so much the opposite manner, is always such a pleasure. ItÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™s enough to get me screaming back into the void.

MikhailÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™s previous collection, Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea, arrived not to push the possibilities of poetryÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½”thereÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™s a prevalent wrongheaded belief that poets have a responsibility to always explore uncharted territoryÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½”but to remind readers why we go to poetry in the first place. Comprised of separate approaches, mostly written out of necessity (the section composed in Iraq being considerably more coded), the achievement of that book is that it encompasses disparate styles that communicate the poetÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™s experience with equal success. Nothing new, just fine writing.

For the rest of the review and a preview of the poetry, go here.