The Pocketknife Bible: The Poems and Art of Anis Mojgani

by Anis Mojgani

Like much of Anis Mojgani s work, The Pocketknife Bible asks the reader to align one-self with rediscovering wonder. For the first time, Mojgani has given us a collection which combines his poems with his illustrations, at times using them to infuse and inform one another. The poems and pictures of The Pocketknife Bible climb through the child-like heart of its author to bring stories from the well that are enhanced by the imagery. This book is a celebration of childhood and family, or rather the mythology of what that entails, exploring the intersection of how we may have once seen the world and how we remember how we saw it. This is an almost-children s book for those who might no longer be young, but could use a map to find their way back to that world."

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Art

144 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2015

About the author

ANIS MOJGANI is a two time National Poetry Slam Champion, winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam, and multiple-time TEDx Speaker. He has been awarded residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, AIR Serenbe, and the Oregon Literary Arts Writers-In-The-Schools program. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and in the pages of such journals as Rattle, Forklift Ohio, Paper Darts, and Thrush.
Anis is the author of five books, all published by Write Bloody Publishing: The Pocketknife Bible (2015). Songs From Under the River (2013), The Feather Room (2011), Over the Anvil We Stretch (2008), and his latest, In the Pockets of Small Gods (2018). Originally from New Orleans, he currently lives in Oregon.

Reviews

[Roxane]

A beautiful book that manages to capture the wonderment of being a young half black, half Persian boy in Louisiana. The story of a boy who is small and keenly attuned to the world as he sees it and knows things like how to get home and and who sees his mother's leg as a beautiful vase. There is not so much nostalgia in these words, as there is that sense of what it means to be just young enough to believe in the smell of falling stars and just old enough to be trusted with a house key. What I am trying to say is that this book feels like magic and makes me believe magic is real.


My only quibble is that prose this beautiful, presented alongside such beautiful art, should be copyedited.

[Silvia Matei]

Poezie și ilustrație. O colecție de poezii nostalgice ilustrate foarte simplu și frumos.

[Cara Meredith]

Definitely contemporary. Loved the poetry, loved the glimpses of his biracial identity.

[Taylor Cole]

Some favorite lines:

"A wolf is holding my heart in its mouth. I don't know if I am being carried or being eaten. But somehow I will feed some part of him."

"My heart is a bird of soft colors & dark eyes. When it uses its beam to clean its feathers it looks up and stares at people longingly. Sometimes my heart reaches. Sometimes it pushes back. Somehow it sometimes does this with the same motion.

Every night I pray for a lantern in my chest. I pray the lantern to be big. To follow it through myself and over the hills. Some nights are foggy. Some mornings I can't make my face out at all."

"I wave my hands at the world when it passes past to remind it I am here. Sometimes when I wave my hands the rest of my body feels like a whisper. I become a secret waiting to be shared. I hear frogs singing it to the darkness. The trees move to their song. All the night knows the secret of my heart. It all makes me feel like the stars, large but far enough away to seem small. Like telescopes are looking at me while they look through them. My body a balloon rising out of water."

"How strange that for something to sound empty it has to make noise inside something else."

[Colin Howard]

I haven’t read a book I’ve enjoyed so much in such a long time. The structure is strange as it’s not so much of a story as it is a collection of words, but it’s not quite poems either. Anis weaves together thoughts and imagery in a way that I’ve never encountered someone else doing, or more accurately similar to some other poets but at a level that I’ve never before found. I highlighted so much of this book and read parts of it over and over and over again because they were just so beautiful or they made me feel beautiful or they hurt beautifully or I hurt beautifully for him or I hurt beautifully for the kid he writes about who he used to be. 10 out of 10 would recommend this book to everybody and anybody despite whether they think poetry is a thing or if they think poetry is beyond understanding. This book is not beyond understanding, and it’s not beyond appreciating. There’s something for everybody within it and I think I will read this book over and over again year after year.

[Emma Kay Krebs]

2.5 stars.

[Brandon]

Pensive and surreal.

[Jean Gill]

Beautifully illustrated and imaginative prose poems. Childhood and dreams. Well done.

[A.]

Reading this book was like looking at a surrealist art piece-- which is to say I loved it! The little art interspersed among the poems are absolutely beautiful, and the way that the poems ultimately connect to the art just blows my mind. It reminded me of a somewhat trippier Little Prince.

[Basmaish]

Extra star for the illustrations. I love Anis Mojgani's illustrations so much.

[Jessi Field]

Anis is an incredible wordsmith. I have loved his written words and his spoken ones, this book is no exception! The illustrations by Anis are great, too.

[Courtney Gillette]

Anis is a gem. No one can capture the precise experience of childhood like he can.