Autorentext

Djelloul Marbrook is a retired newspaper editor. He and his wife, Marilyn, live in Germantown, New York.

Klappentext

Djelloul Marbrook started writing poems in Manhattan when he was fourteen. In his thirties he abandoned poetry after publishing a few poems in small journals, but he never stopped reading and studying poetry. Then at age sixty-seven, appalled by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the poet within awakened. Stuffing sky-blue notebooks in his pockets, Marbrook began walking around Manhattan determined to affirm his beloved home in the wake of the nihilistic attacks. Far from Algiers emerged from hundreds of poems he has composed in the years since.Marbrook’s voice speaks to anyone who has ever had doubts about belonging. Born in Algiers to an American artist and a Bedouin father and arriving in America as a gravely ill infant, Marbrook has contemplated this issue throughout his life. Far from Algiers explores “belonging” in a society that is in denial about its own nativist sentiments. It speaks of the struggle to belong in a culture that pays lip service to assimilation but does not fully accept anyone perceived as “foreign.” Marbrook examines this issue with unflinching honesty. Anyone rejected by a family member or neighbor or coworker will relate to these well-crafted and moving poems.

Inhalt

“How honored I am—how lucky—to have been able to choose this superb first book by Djelloul Marbrook that honors a lifetime of hidden achievement. . . . Sometimes the poems seem utterly symbolic, surreal; they are philosophical, historical, psychological, political, and spiritual. The genius is in the many ways these poems can be read. I kept being rewarded by new awarenesses of the poet’s intentions, by the breadth and scope of the manuscript. As I read, I felt more and more that it was impossible that this was a first book. It seemed the writer knew exactly what to say and, more importantly, exactly what to leave out.”—TOI DERRICOTTE, JUDGE1. Music Intro2. Del Intro3. Music after Intro4. Introduction5. Toi Derricotte Foreword6. Music after Foreword7. Climate Control8. Bitchy Nurse9. Djelloul10. Far from Algiers11. Troubled Boy12. Autobiography13. The Flutes of the Djinn14. Sinistral15. The Memory of Sand16. Submarine17. Strongbox18. What Good Did My Own Good Do Me?19. Port of Entry20. The Angel Departs21. Under the Grates22. Music End Chapter 123. Familiarity24. The Great Game25. Ghosts26. My Ship Comes In27. Old Charts, Warm Rain28. Van Gogh’s Drawings29. The Men’s Room30. Respite31. Curtains32. Catalysis33. Parole Violator34. Ambition35. Danger36. The Price of Crude37. The Price of Admission38. Oneness39. Profanity40. Second Moses41. The Flavor of Lies42. Music End Chapter 243. A Fitting Place44. Commonest Word45. The Air About Him Is Too Thin46. Hurricane Spaghetti47. No Good-bye48. And So My Pharaonic Head49. Exile50. Dread Commerce51. A Sixty-Bag Departure52. Escape Route53. What a Place54. Hasan ibn al-Sabah55. Music end Chapter 356. Credits57. Music OutroDJELLOUL MARBROOK is a retired newspaper editor. He and his wife, Marilyn, live in Germantown, New York.Cover art: A Hole in Time, by Juanita Guccione, oil on canvas, circa 1940, 22"" x 30"". Author photo by Jim Smith.