Standing on Earth

by Mohsen Emadi, Lyn Coffin (Translation)

In his poems of memory and displacement, Iranian poet Mohsen Emadi charts his experience of exile with vivid, often haunting, imagery and a child's love of language. Lyn Coffin's translations from the Persian allow Emadi's poems to inhabit the English language as their own, as the poet recasts his earliest memories and deepest loves over the forges of being "someone who goes to bed in one city and wakes up in another city." Alternating between acceptance and despair, tenderness and toughness, he writes, "I wanted to be a physicist," but "Your kisses made me a poet." Mohsen Emadi is a powerful witness to life in the present times, and Standing on Earth introduces a major world poet to an English-language readership for the first time.

Genres: Poetry

93 pages, Paperback

Published November 8, 2016

Reviews

[Melissa]

A beautifully written and translated collection of poems centered on loss and displacement. While you could read "the lover" invoked throughout as an actual person - and may, in some instances, be referencing someone specific - I feel like the poet means to reference country and culture. The speaker has been forcibly removed from his culture and so mourns it like a lost lover.

Read for the 2017 Read Harder challenge.

[Allie]

I'm not standing in this long line for bread and milk.
I'm standing here to turn over my language.
Everything gets lighter when it crosses the border.
I'm standing here to be translated.
- from section VI, "The Poem"

This was a very difficult collection of poetry for me, so I'm not going to give it a rating, as there are entire pages where I absolutely did not understand what Emadi was trying to say. Though the prose was beautiful when I did understand it! How much more would I have appreciated this if I were better at poetry and metaphor (I went in knowing it was about the author's exile from Iran, and basically nothing else, so the repeated symbols of snow, horses, kisses, and the poem-as-object are largely lost on me).

So look into my eyes
as you pack your bags
and say your goodbyes.
Without regret
you will carry the joy of your last cigarette
until the train starts to leave,
because truth is the child of regret
and I don't want to be your truth.
- from "The moon always shines in vain"

I would recommend it if you enjoy reading poetry! These are a few of the verses that jumped out at me; there was still plenty to like even if the collection as a whole was a little over my head.

On your planet, an apple falls from the tree
and Newton discovers the laws of gravity.

On my planet, the telephone rings.
Newton picks up the receiver,
is hurled into the air,
and gets stuck in the branches of a tree.
I prefer to sit
on the principles of natural philosophy
and bite
floating apples —
which is to say,
I want to weep a little.
- part I, "Laws of Gravity"

[Robyn]

Too abstract for this reader.

Favorite Lines:

When nobody is suppose to come
you prepare your house for your fantasies.

In each farewell
a new fantasy comes to your house.
You prepare the house for it, p.13.

I struggled so much with this collection of poems. I heard about Standing on Earth from a Book Riot blog post, and decided this would be perfect for their Read Harder 2017 challenge i.e “Read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love.” I was so excited to read poems by an author from Iran whose poems illustrated “his experience of exile”. (He currently lives in Mexico.) After hunting down a copy of this book with the help of a co-worker (shout out to Nicole!!!) I couldn’t wait to dig in. That quickly soured.

I didn’t understand or connect with the poems. There are so many images and motifs of horses, kisses, etc, but I had no clue who or what or why they were there. Obviously I have no clue what it’s like living in Iran or being in exile, but I was hoping the poet was going to help me see, feel, and experience what I didn’t know. I’m sure he probably set out to do just that, but it didn’t work for this reader.

[World Literature Today]

"But the poet hardly limits his concerns to the political or physical conditions of exile. Emadi explores the liminal spaces between language and experience, science and aesthetics, the material and the metaphysical, all bifurcations that the poems imagine even while, or perhaps for the purpose of, tearing them down." - Samad Alavi

This book was reviewed in the May 2017 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...