Nazar Boy: poems

By Tarik Dobbs

A HIGHLY ANTICIPATED DEBUT COLLECTION FROM AN AWARD-WINNING NEW POET: The significance of the Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship cannot be overstated; Tarik Dobbs, one of five recipients of the award in 2022, and whose work already appears widely in many nationally renowned literary journals, is only at the beginning of what will likely be a long and illustrious poetic career.

FOR READERS OF SOLMAZ SHARIF, DANEZ SMITH, AND FRANNY CHOI: Political poetry and the discourse surrounding it are becoming increasingly popular among leftist and progressive readers. Nazar Boy is a book that will join the ranks of today’s most radical writers and thinkers.

BAN THIS BOOK: As tensions increase in the US and abroad regarding race and gender, class, sexuality, borders, and more, and as attempts to ban books by writers outside the Western heteronormative norm continue to rise, works like Nazar Boy become increasingly necessary for present and future readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Release date: Jun 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9798888901083

Book preview

© 2024 Tarik Dobbs

Published in 2024 by

Haymarket Books

P.O. Box 180165

Chicago, IL 60618

773-583-7884

www.haymarketbooks.org

[e-mail]

ISBN: 979-8-88890-108-3

Distributed to the trade in the US through Consortium Book Sales and Distribution (www.cbsd.com) and internationally through Ingram Publisher Services International (www.ingramcontent.com).

This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation, Wallace Action Fund, and the Marguerite Casey Foundation.

Special discounts are available for bulk purchases by organizations and institutions. Please email [e-mail] for more information.

Cover design by Matt Avery.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

For my mother, our mothers

For Ahmad Hussein Shamseddine (1941–1971)

CONTENTS

Lived Here

Poem Where Every Bird Is a Drone

My Brother Was Born Both Ally & Combatant

The Wire

Listening to the News on YouTube with Countries Missing

Syndrome Namesake with No History Found

The Poet Considers Her Role

Dragphrasis: Alexis Mateo Calls Home the Troops with a Death Drop

Dear Pre-Queer Lover,

Reflection in Stainless Steel Mirror Diorama with Accordion Fold

As I Cross the Checkpoint, Ramallah’s Sunset Reveals the Silhouette of an Israeli Soldier behind a One-Way Mirror

Home on the Range, Gaza Strip

Deconstructing My Birth

X-Ray Diptych in Ben Gurion Airport, Israel

Sky Bridge Rendering above Minneapolis & the West Bank

Son Throwing Stones in the Street

Anti-Drone Niqab Made from Silver

Mad Honey

In What Was Called a War (2006)

Bracelet of Silence

Persona Poem as In-Home Drone

Nub

A Djinn in Sakhnin

Parade in Gaza: The Model Is About to Be Burned

Landays: On Eid Al-Adha, Men on TV Tie a Length of Manilla Rope

Everything My Father Touches

The Fifteen-Year-Old Considers His Closet

Nub (Origin Story)

George Elt (A Syndrome) Receives His Lifetime Service Award

On Iraq War Veterans

Portrait with Unknown Dimensions

That July, My Sitto