Emma Ramadan Reviews Etel Adnan's Surge

Writer, translator, and bookstore-owner Emma Ramadan reviews Etel Adnan's new book, Surge (Nightboat, 2018), for Full Stop. Ramadan thinks of Adnan as a poet-philosopher: "It’s as though we are watching Adnan be absorbed by the outside, watching the world be absorbed into Adnan," she writes. More:

The idea of a poet-philosopher might seem redundant. Poetry is read and written to dismantle the world, to put dents in our language, to rethink it all. But the description couldn’t be more apt when it comes to Adnan’s work. Adnan’s philosophy is an entangling of poetics and creation with a penetrating consideration of the real. It’s a dismantling of nature, of time, of memory, of everyday occurrences, to inch closer to reality. Through her poetry, chasms are opened. Her philosophical inquiries follow no logic or rule. Questions are asked, worlds are inhabited, realities are exploded, no answers are given.

Surge shines glimpses onto a world that is seen, felt, thought, and imagined all at once, assembled as it is shattered. Nothing in Surge resembles the world we think we know, and yet we immediately recognize the world Adnan has created. Its disorder is its truth.

over the land the night is as long as a city’s deserted avenues,

. . . or the way to distant galaxies. The animals feels that disorientation.

Thoughts are metallic and melt in salt water.

Read the full review at Full Stop.