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Rooms Are Never Finished: Poems
In this stunningly inventive collection a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award in poetry Ali excavates the devastation wrought upon his childhood home, Kashmir, and reveals a more personal devastation: his mother's death and the journey with her body back to Kashmir.
Paperback, 112 pages
Published
March 28th 2003
by W. W. Norton & Company
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Agha Shahid Ali was a Kashmiri-American poet who I don't think is very well known in the US. Years ago, I happened to hear one of his poems on the radio while I was driving and was completely blown away. Finally, I found a used copy of his poems. The "theme" of this book is his mother's death due to an illness, and him taking her body back to Kashmir per her wishes. As with any compilation, I was moved by the some poems, and not so much by the others. I especially liked his ghazals (a ...more
I don't remember how it was I came to buy this book--perhaps because it was a National Book Award finalist (deservedly so), or maybe it was recommended to me?--but I know it's a shame it took me so long to read it the whole way through. Gorgeously written, sorrowful but never depressing, and, in fact, rather the opposite, Ali mourns his mother's death and uses it as a kind of lens to explore his (and her) motherland and culture, religion, and history (including its poetic ancestry). Ali writes...more
Convoluted poetry - and not in the good way. I really enjoyed the closing poem, the title poem, and some of the Darwish translation - in tone, content, and structure - but otherwise the melding of eastern/western-isms makes it almost impossible to discern and interpret either without extensive appendices (which, of course, this volume doesn't find necessary). A firm understanding of Karbala tradition and Kashmiri history is a prerequisite, as they can't clearly be extrapolated from the text. And...more
Absolutely stunning. The first poem in the volume, "Lenox Hill" made me weep at Barnes & Noble the first time I read it. Some of Shahid's best ghazals also included.
About being somewhere, but not really being there. Almost all the poems are about mourning, so they're better read on a rainy day or late in the day.
Not a big fan of the ghazal.
Jennifer Lorene Sun
marked it as national-book-award-poetry
Jannah
marked it as to-read
Alice
marked it as to-read
Krupa
marked it as to-read
Syed Mudasir
added it
Chet Herbert
added it
Faith
marked it as to-read
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Agha Shahid Ali (आगा शाहीद अली) was an American poet of Kashmiri ancestry and upbringing.
His poetry collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, Rooms Are Never Finished (finalist for the National Book Award, 2001). His last book was Call Me Ishmael Tonight, a collection of English ghazal...more
More about Agha Shahid Ali...
His poetry collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, Rooms Are Never Finished (finalist for the National Book Award, 2001). His last book was Call Me Ishmael Tonight, a collection of English ghazal...more
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