Customs can mean two different, relatively distinct in their difference, things. It can mean rituals, traditions, repeated actions generationally inherited. On the other hand, it can mean, when written with a capital C, the official, governmental institution allowing - or denying - access to persons or goods on the territory of a state.
In Solmaz Sharif´s second collection of poetry, Customs epitomizes the routine of bureaucratic inquiries and limitations. Sometimes, the being is humiliated through the repeated investigations. It can go so far as to negate the rights of the being to be what it is. Race, religion, country of origin, language - all those defining features may alter the stamp of approval.
Bureaucracy, wherever it exists, is a challenge for the language, with its own rules and trepidations and words that no one uses but the bureaucrat. Imagine how hard it is to translate this realm into the language of the poetry? Customs though speaks all the languages of expectations, fears, trepidation, disappointment and hurt. It is the individual being facing the bureaucracy whose heartbeats are accounted for.
Language is a priviledged, private space. Speaking, learning a language it is a very personal encounter, as explained in ´Learning Persian´, one of my favorite poetic stories in the collection. The language of rules though is not only private, but can be equally privative - taking away or refusing to grant citizenship priviledges, or considering who is a worthy citizen and who not - like in the case of Ethel Rosenberg, whose fate is mentioned at least twice in the collection.
Although my overall encounters with poetry - this year and the last and many other years before - continue to be limited, I am glad that this year I had more than ever the chance to read and review outstanding poets. Customs closed nicely the reading poetry chapter of the last 12 months, but I promise myself, and my readers too to expand my bibliography and poetic sensibility.
Rating: 5 stars
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