Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, Daffod*ls

 

I have no space forhumility

lets manifest destinyourselves out of poverty

let’s lift ourselves outfrom poetry and

sit in penthouses

lets steal w*ne in the nameof c*vil d*sobedience

and sit on the bed-bugsmeared mattress

reading WALDEN arm in arm

until friends leave

until everyone

and everyone

moves out

I’vebeen increasingly interested in what UK-based international publisher Pamenar Press has beenproducing lately (see my review of the Laynie Browne trio from last year, which included a title they produced), and the latest I’ve seen is by Toronto-basedpoet, writer and translator Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, the book-length suite Daffod*ls (Pamenar Press, 2023). This is Mohammadi’s third full-length collection,following Me, You, Then Snow (Guelph ON: Gordon Hill Press, 2021) [see my review of such here] and the dos-a-dos WJD conjoined with TheOceanDweller, by Saeed Tavanaee Marvi, trans. from the Farsi by Mohammadi (GordonHill Press, 2022) [see my review of such here]. Mohammadi is also the author ofthe recent and collaborative G with Klara du Plessis (Palimpsest Press,2023), and already has a fifth full-length poetry collection, Book ofInterruptions, scheduled for fall 2025 with Wolsak and Wynn. Structured verydifferent than his first two collections, both of which suggest chapbook-lengthworks conjoined into a larger unit, Daffod*ls is composed as abook-length suite, moving and flowing as a single unit of individual, accumulatedlyric sections. The shift is interesting to witness, and one many poets have doneover the years (I think back to Toronto poet Kevin Connolly’s infamous debut AsphaltCigar, for example), watching in real time as a poet’s attention expands beyondthe chapbook and into the collection. Set as an assemblage of slightly surrealfirst-person observations, musings and commentaries, Daffod*ls is a book-lengthlyric suite across more than a hundred pages of sweep and nuance, offering anexpansive gesture into history, time and language. There’s a heft here, onethat requires careful, repeated readings, even through what at times mightappear a kind of rush. Through the space of Daffod*ls, Mohammadi utilizesthe lyric form and space as a means of study, through which to explore thecollisions, contusions and conflicts that emerge through the eyes of a narratorsituated within and between two weighty world cultures. “I miss behind firmly satin the middle of a patch of dirt you / can claw into. Its finished. skyscrapersno longer scrape the / sky. clouds have all moved out of our town. I used towrite / differently so speak to me NOW, through the noise my hand / ispiercing. you’ve got the right idea, sitting with coffee table / magazines andtuned into classical music.” There’s something of the inconsistent puncutationsand capitalizations, and the asterisks, also, that provide a particular kind ofimmediacy, propelling the lines across the page, offering an urgency to theseexplorations, these declarations.

brace for the itch
brace for all the itches!
when I came here therewere still thoughts here
dear Daffod*ls:
WHAT IS THE EASIEST WAYTO AVOID SWEETNESS
                                            there’s this practice of restraint
                                              honed only in teeth
                                              the soil that cultivates
                                                          b*tter ol*ves

I’mcurious at Mohammadi’s use of the asterisk, switching out the letter “i” from wordsfor reasons not entirely clear to my reading. I’m reminded of Roy Kiyooka’s useof the word “inglish,” offering a shifted perspective on a language not hisfirst, and one approached with and through caution, aware of the cultural baggageheld by his adopted language. Through Mohammadi, the shift is visual above all,and one might wonder if this might be a play on the narrative “I,” thesuggestion of a forceful presence even through the absence; what can neither beremoved or completely obscured. And yet, Mohammadi switches out the letter onlywithin words, not solo, so the effect is predominantly visual, suggestinghighlight or even a kind of drift, beyond pure language. Might this be a daffodilset within the very word? “I swear,” Mohammadi writes, fairly early in thecollection, “I’m reading up on pedagogy / and by the discussion / I promise I willunderstand! / and subtitled with an aster*sk / is a muddy delta of sedimentedthoughts / with my cat / nibbling on my toes / and hands / Infinite in theircapacity for wonder [.]”

I attest: half my wordshave disappeared from the dictionary

so I guess this is mylanguage now

whats up?

whats wrong?

whaddya need now?

I don’t have space rightnow