RaveBlackbirdAkbar’s poems acquaint us with his speaker’s plural selves—as an immigrant, alcoholic, man, child, son, lover, and artist. But their almost obsessive meditation on how language creates the self and vice versa unites them ... The first section of the collection presents a world so vast and new that the temptation to name nearly overwhelms the speaker. I am struck most by the intensity and purity of his pleasure, as though he were witnessing everything for the first time ... Ultimately, redemption lies not within language, prayer, or the past, but in the speaker himself ... the speaker reaffirms his belief in God and the world, which holds a magical beauty he cannot deny
