Solmaz Sharif's first book of poetry asks us to see the ongoing costs of war as the unbearable loss of human lives and also the insidious abuses against our everyday speech.
...[an] excellent debut collection ... In Sharif’s rendering, 'Look' is at once a command to see and to grieve the people these words describe — and also a means of implicating the reader in the violence delivered upon those people ... At the book’s heart is 'Personal Effects,' a stunning 31-page elegy for Sharif’s uncle Amoo, killed in the Iran-Iraq war ... An artful lexicographer, Sharif shows us that the diameter of a word is often as devastating as the diameter of a bomb.
...[a] remarkable debut ... Every piece underscores the importance of how we view and name things. Even the book’s title, a term that refers to mine warfare — admonishes readers to think about their own ideas and impressions.
...[an] extraordinary debut collection ... This might be one of the sexiest books ever made from the long fallout of war ... Lyricism is so often over-used in poetry, but here Sharif deploys it perfectly; she heightens language to remember what was.
