Amorisco - Paperback

by Khaled Mattawa (Author)

From "Heartsong"

And I say come like a stranger, like a feather
falling on an old woman's shoulder, like a hawk
that comes to feed from her hands, come like a mystery,
like sunlight rain, a blessing, a bus falling off a bridge,
come like a deserting soldier, a murderer chased by law,
like a girl prostitute escaping her pimp, come like a lost horse,
like a dog dying of thirst, come love, come ragged and melancholy
like the last day on earth, come like a sigh from a sick man,
come like a whisper, like a bump on the road, like a flood,
a dam breaking, turbines falling from the sky,
come love like the stench of a swamp, a barrage of light
filling a blind girl's eye, come like a memory
convulsing the body into sobs, like a carcass floating on a stream,
come like a vision, come love like a crushing need,
come like an afterthought. Heart song. Heart song

Khaled Mattawa was born in Benghazi, Libya, and immigrated to the United States in his teens. As a poet, he is a citizen of the world. Both American and an exile, he writes of the beauties and grievances of history and culture in language born of profound experience. The author of Ismailia Eclipse and translator of three volumes of contemporary Arabic poetry, Mattawa has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Alfred Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA translation grant.

Author Biography

Khaled Mattawa was born in Benghazi, Libya, and immigrated to the U.S. in his teens, where he became an American citizen in 1997. He lived in the deep South for many years, and earned his undergraduate degree in political science and economics at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Mattawa received an MA in creative writing from Indiana University. His work has won many prizes, including the Alfred Hodder Fellowship (Princeton University), a Guggenheim fellowship, and an NEA translation grant. He is Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor