{"title":"janan alexandra","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ejanan alexandra\u003c\/strong\u003e is the daughter of a Lebanese mother and a Beirut-born American father. Her life has been nothing if not peripatetic, with roots scattered in Cyprus, Pakistan, Lebanon, and many corners of the U.S. Since 2015 she has taught creative writing in community-based literacy centers and schools, working with young folks in Los Angeles, Maine, Washington DC, and Southern Indiana. A 2021-2022 Creative Research Fulbright Scholar, janan has also received support from the Vermont Studio Center, Martha's Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. You can find her work in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003ePloughshares\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eGulf Coast\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Adroit Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eMizna\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, and elsewhere in print and online. She currently teaches at Indiana University, edits poems at \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Rumpus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, and plays fiddle with the Sweet May Dews.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"come-from","title":"come from","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHere is a collection that pulses with warmth and vitality, heralding the arrival of a fresh and vibrant voice on the poetry scene.\u003c\/strong\u003e Clear and concise, accessible and profound, janan alexandra’s debut poetry collection \u003cem\u003ecome from\u003c\/em\u003e weaves from English to Arabic, exploring the joint projects of longing and belonging.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePart love song for the speaker’s mother and part grief song for ongoing postcolonial loss, this book reaches for, around, and through language—feeling for its limits and possibilities. \u003cem\u003ecome from\u003c\/em\u003e searches for what might be possible if we dislodge our practices of belonging, divest from nation and state, and instead turn deeply toward each other. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDrawing on both narrative and lyric impulses, alexandra invites readers into a world bristling with family, memory, home, and inheritance—all in the wake of dislocation and fracture. In one section of the book, we follow the speaker “back home” after years of separation; later, we encounter a series of parables in the form of an Arabic abecedarian, through which the speaker recovers parts of her mother tongue—invoking personal and communal histories marked with the \u003cem\u003elongue durée\u003c\/em\u003e of empire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ecome from\u003c\/em\u003e investigates what is deeply interior while reaching toward the world with tenderness and generous attention.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003ecome from\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e“Here, janan alexandra makes audible something ancient about poetry, that it courses through our anatomies, through the larynx and out the mouth: ‘girl makes \/ her tongue a slab of meat \/ between rows of teeth. \/ th!, th!, th! : \/ sound of feet \/ slicing through snow.’ Listen to the smallest gestures of the hand on paper: in the orthography of an aleph is an animate world wound with centuries of violence and wonderment.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong style=\"font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong style=\"font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e—Carolina Ebeid, author of \u003cem\u003eDauerwunder, a brief record of facts\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003ecome from\u003c\/em\u003e arrives, it seems to me, in the footsteps of the cats, of the great Etel Adnan, of the worn \u0026amp; sun-hot stone. Wisdom. Vision. What a dream to find this sound, to reach \u0026amp; reach again for janan alexandra’s brilliant, steadfast attention – each phrase an altar of life, a route to past-language. Question, exclamation, sorrow, memory. I am more alive to read this poet’s every light \u0026amp; dark.” \u003cstrong\u003e—aracelis girmay, author of \u003cem\u003ethe black maria\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Quietly gorgeous, these poems awaken me. The alive of the language: ‘the wind sweeps my head, suddens my wonder’ ('Ars Poetica,' a perfect gem of an unrhymed sonnet). This is a book of tenderness and generosity. You may not know it, but you need ‘Affirmation.’ And right now we all need 'Come From' and 'Arab American Syntax'—and to consider 'When there’s no ceiling left, how do we assemble the sentence?'” \u003cstrong\u003e—Ellen Doré Watson, author of \u003cem\u003epray me stay eager\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"If I were lucky enough to introduce you to janan alexandra’s marvelous first book, come from, by which I really mean if I were to tell you about it what I love...I might start with feeling, how the poems themselves feel yes—recklessly, holleringly, precisely—but also how much in the poems there is to feel, to touch; how thick with the palpable world, how in it they are, and of it, how rich with land and people, with elderberries and ankles and eyes and ferns and saplings and oarlocks and cornflowers and hands and throats and tongues and the plush ears of donkeys and the dreams of bats...I cannot explain it, but the poems, not only their sorrow, but their glee and their wonder and their tumult and their goddamn too, they somehow open their arms to us and bring us in, they set a place and say you can be here, you can rest here, right where you can hear the birds singing, the loves, the roots reaching as they are through the dark, toward us, always, I love these poems how they make welcome.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Ross Gay, from the \u003cem\u003eForeword\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003eCome From\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003eif we do not speak\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ein the night     in the kitchen\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ehere leaning over the starry counter\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003elike two hunched sunflowers\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003eif we do not stand     stooped\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003elike this     picking at cold lasagna\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ewhich is neither the food\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003eof your country     nor my own\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ehow will we carry this tin pail\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003esloshing     with the question\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e\u003ci style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"\u003ecan you imagine walking\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e\u003ci style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"\u003einto a softly lit room\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e\u003ci style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"\u003ein the world \u0026amp; feeling\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e\u003ci style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"\u003ehereiam, homewithallofyou?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e\u003ci style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003eto be known in the arithmetic\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003eof belonging     we follow\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ean order     of operations\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ewe do the math\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e     enough     \u0026amp; not enough.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ewhat are you     really really?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e     from from?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ereally we are     the field\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ein each other’s eyes\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003ewe hope     to die surrounded    \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003eby our own languages—   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;\"\u003eeven those we cannot speak\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46710431776997,"sku":"","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Ebook","offer_id":46710431809765,"sku":"","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47297264189669,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/files\/comefrom_FrontCover_SS25.jpg?v=1729187586"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/collections\/janan_alexandra__Credit_Anna_Powell_Denton.jpg?v=1729195342","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/collections\/janan-alexandra.oembed","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}