Deep Are These Distances Between Us

Susan Atefat-Peckham (1970–­­­­2004) was born as a first-generation American to Iranian parents and lived most of her life in Switzerland and the United States. She was the author of the poetry collection That Kind of Sleep and editor of the anthology of Middle Eastern writing, Talking Through the Door. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Borderlands, Prairie Schooner, International Poetry Review, Texas Review, Puerto Del Sol, Southern Poetry Review, and Northwest Review.

“It is natural that under the words of poems like these, a geography of forms. Transnational, existing between countries and cultures, the poems of Susan Atefat-Peckham were part of the charting of a unique landscape. Like the poems of Meena Alexander, Shreela Ray, Reetika Vazirani, and Agha Shahid Ali, her poems have languages, locales, food, and fabrics fully other than the familiar material of American poetry. We have been waiting a long time for new poems from Susie, and here they are, found in files by her son, another poet of life and the mind. Rumi taught us that every poem must be followed by silence. We must listen carefully to the words we have been given. We are not bereft. This is a cartography of love and wonder. Cardinals, cardinals everywhere.”

• Foreword Darius Atefat-PeckhamSmuggling (A Short Essay)Night ConversationsI: AppearancesSmall Things How to Get to the House on Takhti StreetCleanGhossam Remembers His BrotherHatsFacesOutside the Mosque The Meanings of NamesAppearances How to Cut Agha Rashid Breathes In Nina HearsThe Memory of Cells Nina CallsWhy They AttackedBars II: LoversThe Anatomy of Hands At the Airport Lovers Ai’d Mobarack Vessels Hunger Dissecting Turtles (added)Sestinelle for Travelers Filling the Spaces We Know Walking Home in AutumnTo My Unborn SonTo My Son at Seven MonthsTo My Son at Ten MonthsIII: ContinuanceTara At NightGhossam Sleeps Who? A Visitor Zeeba SaysIn the Morning Lower Manhattan Torches Interring the Body ContinuanceLight Instructions on What to Say First at a Muslim Burial Where You Are