THE COMPLETE POETIC WORKS - of Soma AMRITAH
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$19.95
$19.95
For the first time, all Amritah's poetic works in one volume, including 'After the Fire', 'Out of these Eyes', 'The Lost Verse' and 'Manuscript Remains', plus the bonus features of an Interview with the Author and a Biographical Essay.
"Let me tell you of the Past and let me speak of Incarnation - I saw the mortal sin of Cain, I drank at the Transfiguration. I have done my Jonah, I have climbed my Sinai, the belly of the whale it has puked me out entire." Soma Amritah
The Complete Poetic Works: Now collected together for the first time in one volume, here are all three of Middle-Eastern author Soma Amritah's poetic works - 'After the Fire ', 'Out of these Eyes ', and 'The Lost Verse' - as well as a collection of his 'Manuscript Remains' never before to have been published anywhere. Hitherto it has been impossible to appreciate the dreamic and spellbinding journeys in verse of this mystical author in one place. All of his classic poetry is here - 'The Poet of the Plateau', 'The Lake Tonight ', 'The Stranger ','I dreamt I sailed or did I dream? ' - plus unseen works such as 'The Hand of Death', 'Cosmos Chair', Noah Two' and others.
Special Features of this Edition: This is the final 'Posthumous Edition' of his works and includes a specially commissioned Biographical and Critical Essay by Edouard d'Araille, an Interview with Soma Amritah by Khamil Akhbar that took place before a bizarre disappearance in the late Summer of 2000, a Select Bibliography of his works spanning poetry and fiction, and Special Extras such as his Last Letter and a Missing Page. - All texts are provided in their Final Versions, and the original 'Living Time Press' Cover Images of each of the volumes are included. An extract from the prefatory note to his volume 'Out of these Eyes' is provided below as it gives a better idea of the verse of this mysterious author:
From Original Preface to 'Out of these Eyes':
"For those unfamiliar with the poetry or fiction of the Persian author Soma Amritah, this translation of the travel chronicle 'Out of these Eyes' is an ideal introduction to his work, combining both the lyrical and the 'dramatic' within one volume. 'Out of these Eyes' is the story of a journey into the unknown. A journey into a desert. A journey into the heart of the human being. Therefore, unlike a haphazard collection of poetry, it is advisable for the reader to pursue the work from beginning to end in order to derive most value from it - each poem being to some degree intelligible on its own though only making complete sense as constituent parts of the work as a whole. Are we in Africa or the Orient - and where is the "land without name"? We are drawn into the journey of another and stage by stage it becomes our own. It has parallelisms with the interior journey that each of us make, - from birth to death, from love to reminiscence, from ignorance to knowing (interaction and progression of reality and mind). We are led inside the tale through a mysterious voyeur whose consciousness becomes one with that of a man he is observing through a keyhole. It is at this point that the 'story proper' begins - though not where author's narrative playfulness ends. We are then transposed into the point of view of the man in the "Dark Chamber", pursuing his story in the first person singular, though from the meeting with "The Stranger" onwards a second character appears to take on narrativeprimacy. What then are we to make of the pronouncement:"I am Soma Amritah, I am the immortal dream" ? Is it possible that the author is literally and 'real'ly the stranger? The terse style (generally progressing in punctual four-line stanzas), the 'poetized' drama, the search for knowledge and the landscape of the orient - these are all recognizable hallmarks of Soma Amritah's work. Born in Bagdhad in 1972, raised around the ancient town of 'Uruk' (Erech) in the South and educated in the ancient Persian languages as well as the modern dialects, Amritah plays with the meaning of words as much as with ambiguities of sense...".
"Let me tell you of the Past and let me speak of Incarnation - I saw the mortal sin of Cain, I drank at the Transfiguration. I have done my Jonah, I have climbed my Sinai, the belly of the whale it has puked me out entire." Soma Amritah
The Complete Poetic Works: Now collected together for the first time in one volume, here are all three of Middle-Eastern author Soma Amritah's poetic works - 'After the Fire ', 'Out of these Eyes ', and 'The Lost Verse' - as well as a collection of his 'Manuscript Remains' never before to have been published anywhere. Hitherto it has been impossible to appreciate the dreamic and spellbinding journeys in verse of this mystical author in one place. All of his classic poetry is here - 'The Poet of the Plateau', 'The Lake Tonight ', 'The Stranger ','I dreamt I sailed or did I dream? ' - plus unseen works such as 'The Hand of Death', 'Cosmos Chair', Noah Two' and others.
Special Features of this Edition: This is the final 'Posthumous Edition' of his works and includes a specially commissioned Biographical and Critical Essay by Edouard d'Araille, an Interview with Soma Amritah by Khamil Akhbar that took place before a bizarre disappearance in the late Summer of 2000, a Select Bibliography of his works spanning poetry and fiction, and Special Extras such as his Last Letter and a Missing Page. - All texts are provided in their Final Versions, and the original 'Living Time Press' Cover Images of each of the volumes are included. An extract from the prefatory note to his volume 'Out of these Eyes' is provided below as it gives a better idea of the verse of this mysterious author:
From Original Preface to 'Out of these Eyes':
"For those unfamiliar with the poetry or fiction of the Persian author Soma Amritah, this translation of the travel chronicle 'Out of these Eyes' is an ideal introduction to his work, combining both the lyrical and the 'dramatic' within one volume. 'Out of these Eyes' is the story of a journey into the unknown. A journey into a desert. A journey into the heart of the human being. Therefore, unlike a haphazard collection of poetry, it is advisable for the reader to pursue the work from beginning to end in order to derive most value from it - each poem being to some degree intelligible on its own though only making complete sense as constituent parts of the work as a whole. Are we in Africa or the Orient - and where is the "land without name"? We are drawn into the journey of another and stage by stage it becomes our own. It has parallelisms with the interior journey that each of us make, - from birth to death, from love to reminiscence, from ignorance to knowing (interaction and progression of reality and mind). We are led inside the tale through a mysterious voyeur whose consciousness becomes one with that of a man he is observing through a keyhole. It is at this point that the 'story proper' begins - though not where author's narrative playfulness ends. We are then transposed into the point of view of the man in the "Dark Chamber", pursuing his story in the first person singular, though from the meeting with "The Stranger" onwards a second character appears to take on narrativeprimacy. What then are we to make of the pronouncement:"I am Soma Amritah, I am the immortal dream" ? Is it possible that the author is literally and 'real'ly the stranger? The terse style (generally progressing in punctual four-line stanzas), the 'poetized' drama, the search for knowledge and the landscape of the orient - these are all recognizable hallmarks of Soma Amritah's work. Born in Bagdhad in 1972, raised around the ancient town of 'Uruk' (Erech) in the South and educated in the ancient Persian languages as well as the modern dialects, Amritah plays with the meaning of words as much as with ambiguities of sense...".