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Kaveh Akbar's Calling a Wolf a Wolf
- 1. Collection by: Kaveh Akbar Presentation by: Samuel Stentz, Ira Soltis, Lauren Vossler, Vignesh Raman, and Alan Lu
- 3. • Born in Tehran, Iran. • Currently teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency program at Randolph College. • 2016 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship recipient. • Pushcart Prize recipient. • Recipient of the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. • Founded and edits Divedapper, a home for dialogues with the most vital voices in contemporary poetry. • Previously ran The Quirk, a for-charity print literary journal. • Has also served as Poetry Editor for BOOTH and as the Book Reviews Editor for the Southeast Review. Kaveh Akbar
- 4. Akbar possesses an attachment to the things of his world so fierce he manages, somehow, to bind the pages of his despair to an existential joy rooted in the mythmaking of his own song. --------------------------- Poetry International --------------------------- He is a Persian American, and a Muslim American, and a recovering alcoholic, and – to judge by the poems alone – erotically attracted to men and to women. Akbar has what every poet needs: the power to make, from emotions that others have felt, memorable language that nobody has assembled before. ------------------- Stephen Burt ------------------- Cover art: Nicola Samori
- 5. Though loss infuses the Divedapper founder and editor’s work, he animates myriad human struggles—addiction, estrangement from one’s body and language, faith and its absence—with empathy, intimacy, and expansive vision. -------------------------- Publisher’s Weekly -------------------------- Critical Reception - I Here, in his forthcoming Calling a Wolf a Wolf, more than any other lens of identity, the alcoholic steps into the spotlight. But the genius is his allowing all the many cultures that are contained and challenged within the identifier of addict to play well together. In this way gender, sexuality, ethnicity even, are subverted, bypassed, and somehow also honored. ---------------------------------- Virginia Quarterly Review ----------------------------------
- 6. Critical Reception - II In this volume we come to know Akbar as a poet of theory and impulse, a poet who writes by the lamp of the strange, rough moment. What these poems lack in cohesion they redeem in the possibility of healing. The quality of this volume is not one thought explored to its beginnings, or ends, but the exploration of a place in the self. --------------------------- Poetry International --------------------------- In Calling a Wolf a Wolf, Kaveh Akbar exquisitely and tenaciously braids astonishment and atonement into a singular lyric voice. The desolation of alcoholism widens into hard-won insight… His imagery— wounded and resplendent—is masterful and his syntax ensnares and releases music that’s both delicate and muscular. ------------------------- Eduardo C. Corral -------------------------
- 7. Format ● Book divided into three sections ○ Outside Quote ● Only consistency in format is inconsistency
- 8. Punctuation
- 9. Stanzas
- 10. Spacing Techniques (Excerpt from Palmyra) ● Used throughout the book ● Separates distinct ideas across page breaks ● Can be read as a greater or lesser break than a new line
- 13. Dedications ● Appear above some poems ● Offer insight into poem’s inspiration ● Similar to poetry reading
- 14. Main Themes ● Poems focused on two main themes ○ Addiction ○ Culture
- 15. Culture ● Kaveh struggles with his culture ○ Heritage ● Loss of his roots ○ Do You Speak Persian? ● Desire for something greater ○ Learning to Pray
- 16. Addiction ● Multitude of Portraits of the Alcoholic … ● Continual struggle between living and surviving ○ “Portrait of the Alcoholic with Doubt and Kingfisher” ● Recounts experiences related to alcohol ○ “Portrait of the Alcoholic with Home Invader and Housefly”
- 17. Use of Animal Analogies “Your irises or their mothish obsession with light... Starving mice will eat their own tails before ceding to hunger… Some migrant birds build their nests over rivers to push them into the water when they leave this seems almost warm the addictions that were killing me fastest were the ones I loved the best…” - Portrait of the Alcoholic with Doubt and Kingfisher
- 18. Kaveh Akbar Close Reading: “Orchids Are Sprouting From The Floorboards”
- 19. Activity ● Form into groups ● Read one of Akbar’s poems ● Discuss the poem ● Draw a visual representation of the poem
- 20. Citations “Kaveh Akbar Maps Unprecedented Experience in ‘Portrait of the Alcoholic.’” The Fix, www.thefix.com/kaveh- akbar-maps-unprecedented-experience-portrait-alcoholic. Golovchenko, Margaryta. “On Kaveh Akbar's 'Calling a Wolf a Wolf' – The Coil – Medium.” Medium, The Coil, 20 Sept. 2017, medium.com/the-coil/book-review-kaveh-akbar-calling-a-wolf-a-wolf-margaryta-golovchenko- 537a5fc4b5c9. ABFIran. “Reyhaneh Jabbari: Justice Denied, Dignity Under Assault.” YouTube, YouTube, 25 Oct. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDRR0kJZ07Q. Akbar, Kaveh. Calling a Wolf a Wolf: Poems. Alice James Books, 2017. Schmank, Susie. “Purdue Professor Writes through Alcohol Addiction in Poetry Collection.” Indianapolis Star, IndyStar, 17 Oct. 2017, www.indystar.com/story/entertainment/2017/10/16/purdue-professor-writes-through-alcohol- addiction-poetry-collection/755748001/. Ebersole, John. “Kaveh Akbar, Calling A Wolf A Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017).” Tourniquet, Tourniquet Review, 14 Dec. 2017, tourniquetreview.com/blog/2017/5/23/calling-a-wolf-a-wolf-ebersole.