Pilgrim Bell: Poems -- Kaveh Akbar, Paperback

Kaveh Akbar's exquisite, highly anticipated follow-up to Calling a Wolf a Wolf

With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar's second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity where artifacts of self and belonging have been shed. How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? And if living justly in a nation that would see them erased is, too, a kind of self-destruction, what does one do with the body's question, "what now shall I repair?" Here, Akbar responds with prayer as an act of devotion to dissonance--the infinite void of a loved one's absence, the indulgence of austerity, making a life as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation--teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness.

Richly crafted and generous, Pilgrim Bell's linguistic rigor is tuned to the register of this moment and any moment. As the swinging soul crashes into its limits, against the atrocities of the American empire, and through a profoundly human capacity for cruelty and grace, these brilliant poems dare to exist in the empty space where song lives--resonant, revelatory, and holy.

Author: Kaveh Akbar
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 08/03/2021
Pages: 80
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.50w x 0.35d
ISBN: 9781644450598

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/01/2021 pg. 26
Library Journal 06/01/2021 pg. 117
Publishers Weekly 06/21/2021
Shelf Awareness 08/03/2021
Booklist 08/01/2021 pg. 17

About the Author
Kaveh Akbar is the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf and has received honors such as a Levis Reading Prize and multiple Pushcart Prizes. Born in Tehran, Iran, he teaches at Purdue University and in low-residency programs at Warren Wilson and Randolph Colleges.