Thank You for the Window Office - Maged Zaher

Today's book of poetry:  Thank You for the Window Office.  Maged Zaher.  Ugly Duckling Presse.  Brooklyn, New York.  2012.

Leonard Swartz suggested that Maged Zaher might be an Arabic Coptic Christian Frank O'Hara living in modern Seattle.  If I had to play that game, and it's one I enjoy, I'd say Zaher is like a much gentler and better educated Arabic Charles Bukowski with a tincture of Ron Koertge on the side.  That's not to suggest any similarity in style or content between Bukowski and Zaher - it's more about character and tone, like Buk, Zaher is writing Outsider poetry.

     I am hiding my vulnerability at the shawarma shop

     Some people need to die for civilization's sake

     Let me tell you about my exotic country then

     Let me also tell you about the danger of not having a poetic project

     Your dress invokes my longing for reality

     I have a standard response for good looks

     And the feeling that I will be punished for it

     And that I will have to head back home to jerk off under pressure

     The hit man is hungry

     He needs encouraging text messages

     Let us hear Hamlet moan because of his sore nipples

     I have to stay here and ask for a better menu next war

     There are people in the pub slowly eating their way into life

...

Thank You for the Window Office is a long poem, or a suite of connected and untitled poems, that explore the inside from the out, they are poems about navigating American popular culture, both believing in it and mocking it.  As much as Maged Zaher is a participant he is always, even while participating in it, the outsider to the dominant culture.

     Gravity arrived in a cab

     Meanwhile three different treasure hunts were going on downtown

     Please forgive our group their racial composition, Your Honor

     The translator is thinking of the bodies of strangers

     In my memory I located the texture of the theatre seat

     You were sitting next to me

     In my memory there is also a short order cook taking a nap,

     A Marxist scholar studying utopia,

     And a hostess who is tired

     Outside of my memory there is a mortgage broker

     And three environmental activists having breakfast

     You look at your phone as if it matters

     And scream three times before you inform them of your loneliness

     You tell me: "Five more minutes to reach intimacy"

     My mind is full of sexual images

     Of many young academics arriving at the conference

     With their hostile lovers

     I ate my leftovers yesterday

     Today I am planning

     To start a new poem

...

And what a gaze.  Although these short poems are not strict narratives they are compelling stories with dramatic insight and a hilariously hostile sense of humour.  There are frequent moments of startling clarity where Zaher says that exact thing, that precise observation that reveals truth.

     A comfortable chair for the poem

     I am not worried—but then, I need more wisdom

     Can you instead get me a heated croissant?

     Revolutions need people with good hair

     Lenin, Subcommandante Marcos, Chavez...

     Ok—so reality is a little confusing

     Justice will remain a simple data point

     Language is always good to express the middle class

     Money and roses for everyone else

...

These very spiffy poems articulately open a window onto a view of America that will be new for many, but Zaher is not only an Outsider — he is on the inside looking out at the same time.  Thank You for the Window Office will open a few windows for readers who are new to the very talented Maged Zaher.

Maged Zaher's previously published books include Portrait of the Poet as an Engineer, and The Revolution Happened and You Didn't Call Me.

Maged Zaher reading poetry for the Subtext Annivery Reading 6.6.2007:

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