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Open Books: Events
December 10, 2009 07:30 PM
MAGED ZAHER
There is so much going on in Maged Zaher’s first full-length book, Portrait of the Poet as an Engineer ($12 Pressed Wafer), that distillation seems impossible. Zaher, who was born and raised in Egypt, holds masters degrees in structural engineering and computer science. Corporate structure features in his writing -- "at lunchtime, we took our khaki pants, meeting agendas and went there, the fourth circle of hell, by the espresso machine" -- as does potential assimilation -- "Being an arab / the field opens / for a game of hide-n-seek / identity is composed or abstracted or both." The longing (romantic and sexual), sadness, and anger revealed in his work are skillfully bound together through his intelligent wit. Zaher's poems reach the reader as a kind of overheard conversation; the conversationalist is personable, open, and tuned into the socio-political realities of the day: "The class struggle is over, we could not make the playoffs." The poet as an engineer writes, "the surroundings / became a necessity / for the systematic / production of sentiments" -- an exquisitely sardonic and perceptive poet as engineer.
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