- Alien, Correspondent
- Antony Di Nardo
- 1894078799
- 9781894078795
- 96
- 2010
- 6" × 8.75"
- $19.00
to buy with PayPal or a Credit Card
Cover art:
Photograph by Ann Nadin
e-book:
You can buy the e-book edition of this title from Kobo, Nook and the Sony Reader Store.Listen to Poems from Alien, Correspondent
These astute, generous poems give us contemporary Beirut in all its ravaged and incongruent beauty.
This arresting first collection is, in part, a delicately balanced look at Beirut from the perspective of a Westerner who lives and works in that remarkable city. Whether writing about the Middle East or about domestic life, Di Nardo refuses to romanticize; he doesn’t moralize about the causes of perennial conflicts. He is that rare thing: a clear-eyed witness.
Here and there Starbucks coffee cups collide
with service taxis and re-assign the chaos, litter
the brittle landscape of the coast, while the world
command picks through the sands of lawlessness
for just a grain of what remains of itself,
the little air of familiarity defunct, despised and fed
to those on foot like scraps to gutter cats in the shade
of too many parked cars that took the place
of date palms standing on the sidewalks.
Yet no one would ever leave their shift at the wheel,
or turn home in the grim belief life’s purpose is that unreal.
(from “Oh the streets of West Beirut”)
“Time and space are lenses Di Nardo overlays to bring Beirut into historic and personal focus… Evidence of violence abounds here, as does love, and Di Nardo epitomizes, like Cavafy, the empathy required to be its perfect correspondent.” - John Barton
The Gutter Series: Between Projects, Poetry Edition with Antony Di Nardo - April 30, 2012
On Writing, with Antony Di Nardo - on Open Book: Toronto
Vancouver Poet Laureate Brad Cran praises Alien, Correspondent by Antony Di Nardo
Vancouver poet laureate Brad Cran writes, "[Antony] Di Nardo is a superb poet. Alien, Correspondent is a great book... a diligently crafted and unpretentious book filled with insight and great poem after great poem."
The Poem Then Becomes the Correspondence: An Interview with Antony Di Nardo by Jacob McArthur Mooney in The Torontoist
Antony Di Nardo Interview @ The Torontoist by Jake McArthur Mooney at Vox Populism: Seeing the World Through Poem Coloured Glasses
Ten Questions, with Antony Di Nardo - on Open Book: Toronto
Coming Soon (As in Today): Antony di Nardo's Alien, Correspondent - at the Torontoist
Poetry Month: Antony Di Nardo - Soul on Standby - The Toronto Quarterly - Antony talks about e-books...
Reviews
- Like an oriental rug by Mishka Mourani (Amazon.com - May 29, 2010)
- The Dark Places of the World by Quentin Mills-Fenn (Uptown magazine, Winnipeg - August 5, 2010)
- Di Nardo's poetry sings for Beirut by George Elliott Clarke (Halifax Chronicle Herald - January 9, 2011)
- Retail 2010: Brick Books by Jacob McArthur Mooney (Vox Populism, January 11, 2010)
- Alien, Correspondent by Antony Di Nardo by Hannah McGregor (The Bull Calf 1.2, May 2011)
- Of Violence and Poetry by Atef Laouyene (Canadian Literature)
- Alien, Correspondent by Antony Di Nardo by Carolyne Van Der Meer (subTerrain #58, Summer 2011)
- The Moment Stands Still: Poetry From Brick Books by Kristina Marie Darling (New Letters: A Magazine of Writing & Art, University of Missouri - Kansas City, Volume 78, No. 2 (winter 2012))
