Fairoz
Published on 24. March 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
104 pages
978-1-78037-600-4 (ISBN)
Description
Fairoz is a book-length poetry sequence in which Moniza Alvi explores an imagined teenage girl's susceptibility to extremism. The book's fragmented, collaging narrative draws together fairytale elements, glimpses of Fairoz's thoughts, and pieces of dialogue. A folkloric representation of God and the devil acts as a wry counterpoint, touching on questions of morality. Fairoz is a powerful portrayal of human vulnerability.
Reviews / Votes
She is a skilled storyteller, recounting the extraordinary in the voice of the everyday, so that we accept the miraculous as something we need... the overriding impression is of a deft, restrained language carrying ideas with a metaphysical wit and seriousness. -- Leonie Rushforth * London Magazine * One of the few British Poets whose work could currently be described as essential reading, not least as we try to grasp what fractures of cultural difference might have contributed to the July 7 bombings. -- Tim Robertson * Magma * Europa made the most difference to me as a writer. It showed me one way of writing about trauma and violence, how to circle around a central concern and explore it from different angles [...] when I came to write my own poetry about violence I returned to this collection many times to study how it had been done before. -- Kim Moore * The North *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Tyne and Wear
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 6 mm
Weight
175 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78037-600-4 (9781780376004)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hertfordshire. After working for many years as a secondary school teacher in London, she is now a freelance writer and tutor, and lives in Wymondham, Norfolk. All her poetry is published by Bloodaxe. Her most recent titles are Fairoz (2022), Blackbird, Bye Bye (2018); her book-length poem, At the Time of Partition (2013); Homesick for the Earth, her versions of the French poet Jules Supervielle (2011); Europa (2008); and Split World: Poems 1990-2005 (2008), which includes poems from her five previous collections, The Country at My Shoulder (1993), A Bowl of Warm Air (1996), Carrying My Wife (2000), Souls (2002) and How the Stone Found Its Voice (2005). The Country at My Shoulder was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Whitbread poetry prizes, and Carrying My Wife was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Europa and At the Time of Partition were selected as Poetry Book Society Choices in 2008 and 2013 respectively and both were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Moniza Alvi received a Cholmondeley Award in 2002. A collection of her poems was published in Italy by Donzelli Editore in their Poesia series in 2014, Un mondo diviso, translated by Paola Splendore.
Content
11 Driving the devil away
12 In the present tense
14 Indoors
16 Hair
17 What do you do with a heap of stones?
18 'It was a house of female habitation'
20 Questions in the wood
21 The Devil and the gleams
22 The Devil's soup
23 The white cat
24 Not enchantment
25 In the morning
26 Home
27 Fairoz and Annat
29 As summer
30 School lunchtimes
31 Listening to Fairoz and Tahir
33 Pilgrims
35 Does the Devil know what he is?
36 The notice
37 When they meet
39 A story of God and the Devil
40 Ripe
41 Wolves-of-the-woods
42 What runs under her skin
43 She pictures Jannah
44 Absent and present
47 Her absences
49 'where the swarm is thickest'
51 The dark patch
52 The plants
53 It was long ago
54 A conversation
56 A punch
58 Ice age
59 He's 'v v sorry'
60 The short long story
61 The loping wolf
62 A tale reduced to a sliver
64 God's eyelids
65 This woman will speak to you, he says
67 The bride
68 Gone
69 A task
71 The viewing
71 He was
72 The contest
73 A change
75 Classroom scorpions
77 Cherry stones
78 Who's there?
79 DANGER
81 The eye
82 She's heard nothing from Tahir
83 Call him three times
84 What's real?
85 The Devil's news
87 Witnesses
89 In the snow
90 Her whole life
91 Urgent question
92 Like a mark on her kameez
93 What she'd like to say
94 The room in her mind's eye
95 The woods
96 Cold song
97 Her future
98 'Over every soul there is a watcher'
99 My imagined Fairoz
102 Notes and acknowledgements
12 In the present tense
14 Indoors
16 Hair
17 What do you do with a heap of stones?
18 'It was a house of female habitation'
20 Questions in the wood
21 The Devil and the gleams
22 The Devil's soup
23 The white cat
24 Not enchantment
25 In the morning
26 Home
27 Fairoz and Annat
29 As summer
30 School lunchtimes
31 Listening to Fairoz and Tahir
33 Pilgrims
35 Does the Devil know what he is?
36 The notice
37 When they meet
39 A story of God and the Devil
40 Ripe
41 Wolves-of-the-woods
42 What runs under her skin
43 She pictures Jannah
44 Absent and present
47 Her absences
49 'where the swarm is thickest'
51 The dark patch
52 The plants
53 It was long ago
54 A conversation
56 A punch
58 Ice age
59 He's 'v v sorry'
60 The short long story
61 The loping wolf
62 A tale reduced to a sliver
64 God's eyelids
65 This woman will speak to you, he says
67 The bride
68 Gone
69 A task
71 The viewing
71 He was
72 The contest
73 A change
75 Classroom scorpions
77 Cherry stones
78 Who's there?
79 DANGER
81 The eye
82 She's heard nothing from Tahir
83 Call him three times
84 What's real?
85 The Devil's news
87 Witnesses
89 In the snow
90 Her whole life
91 Urgent question
92 Like a mark on her kameez
93 What she'd like to say
94 The room in her mind's eye
95 The woods
96 Cold song
97 Her future
98 'Over every soul there is a watcher'
99 My imagined Fairoz
102 Notes and acknowledgements