“The poems in Sharon Olinka’s The Good City fall down the page like the destroyed buildings and lives of a city besieged.”—George Economou |
Sharon Olinka: The Good City
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Yusef Komunyakaa said of Sharon Olinka’s previous book, A Face Not My Own: “Since experimentation is the new buzzword for poetic evasion, it is a pleasure to read a poet who embraces some hard-edged, deeply-felt truths propelled by a forthright grace. There isn’t any smokescreen to blur or impede— her poetry says what it means. A pure need hones each poem into a gem that hasn’t had the raw urgency polished out. Here’s a poetry we can trust; it refracts light only after its meaning has pierced us.”
“These vibrant poems beam their light on history’s bad dreams of lost empires but also recall past harmonies of a great city. The ghost voices of Izmir, the former Smyrna, are given rich particulars of passion and suffering that resonate in memory. With narrative drive and empathy for her subject, Olinka invites us to inhabit present and past worlds in turmoil. Her book deserves a wide audience.” —Colette Inez
"Sharon Olinka has reminded us here to listen to all ghosts who dwell in our world. They are all trying to teach us who we are. Like Izmir, we are each built upon a cache of bone and soul. The voices live as
long as we listen. Use these poems well and learn the value of memory."—Michael Macklin, www.thecafereview.com
“The poems in Sharon Olinka’s The Good City fall down the page like the destroyed buildings and lives of a city besieged. Be it Smyrna, the book’s prototypical wounded city, or by analogy, any of the countless cities that have suffered unspeakable violence, to which the name New York must now be added, this remarkable poet gives voice to the human loss and pain that attend their devastation. Olinka’s starkly eloquent poetic testimonies transport us to the old, cosmopolitan Smyrna, and to the modern Izmir of Turkey that arose out of the ashes of that “good city,” and bring us all, citizens of a world city beset by terror, to a place where we may begin to imagine the terms of our survival.” —George Economou
ISBN-13: 9780975919781; ISBN-10: 0975919784 $15.00
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The Good City
The angel Raphael rose high
over old stones. Under the stones
a protracted rumbling
touched with discord. Like copper pots
fallen down a well. Or buried
keening. The voices
do not stop. Here we were Muslim,
Christian, Jew. Ours
was a great city. Not London
or New York. Not Smyrna.
We lived in peace. We wore beads
to ward off the Evil Eye, and still
molecules of air conspired
against us. This is a warning.
The bolts of vermilion and saffron silk
were burned beyond recognition.
The babies were burned. I am mixing
things up, I am in a port hundreds of years
from now, and people beg for their lives.
The ships, like God,
may take them. Not take them.
We lived in peace.
Don't you believe me?
Here was the Jewish Quarter.
The street of weavers.
The street of silversmiths.
You can come here
any time, be a tourist.
The dead will not deter you.
You can imagine Smyrna.
Courtesan, Ancient Smyrna
I am made from civet and dreams.
I am always amazed
by men, their hall of mirrors.
Their distortions.
Just last month, I had
an old general. Desire, after
so long, frightened him.
I heard that as penance,
he sucks the pus of invalids.
But he's no longer
my concern. And there was
the pretty married man, his dark
glossy curls, who turned me
over and over, on my belly.
Wishing me also a man.
Finally I said, Get one.
I know three things
to be true.
The sea never runs dry.
The body is a cup.
Wisdom comes from the body.
When I die,
bury all my jewelry
with me. Give my poems
to Heroditus Atticus.
He will know
what to do with them.
My daughter
will inherit this house.
And five groves
of fig trees. |
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