Bring Now the Angels: Poems

A new collection of poetry from the Bakeless Prize winning author of Dhaka Dust.

This collection juxtaposes text from Google Search autocomplete with the intimate language of prayer. Corporate jargon co-exists with the incantatory and ancient ghazal form. In a contemporary version of "Jack & the Beanstalk," an unidentified interviewer interrogates a rural South Asian farmer about failed magic beans. And as part of a section hinging on illness and mortality, a family expands to accommodate both a SickDad and a WellFather.

Ahmed's second book of poetry explores the terrain of loss--of a beloved family member, of human dignity & potential, of the earth as it stands, of hope. Her poems weave mourning with the erratic process of healing, skepticism with an unsteady attempt to regain faith.

With poems that are by turns elegiac, biting, and tender, Bring Now the Angels conveys a desire to move toward transformation and rebirth, even among seemingly insurmountable obstacles: chronic disease, corporate greed, environmental harm, and a general atmosphere of anxiety and violence.

This collection juxtaposes text from Google Search autocomplete with the intimate language of prayer. Corporate jargon co-exists with the incantatory and ancient ghazal form. Ahmed's second book of poetry explores the terrain of loss--of a beloved family member, of human dignity & potential, of the earth as it stands, of hope. Her poems weave mourning with the erratic process of healing, skepticism with an unsteady attempt to regain faith.
With poems that are by turns elegiac, biting, and tender, Bring Now the Angels conveys a desire to move toward transformation and rebirth, even among seemingly insurmountable obstacles: chronic disease, corporate greed, environmental harm, and a general atmosphere of anxiety and violence.

BRING NOW THE ANGELS

To test your pulse as you sleep.
Bring the healer the howler the listening ear--

Bring an apothecary to mix the tincture--
We need the salve
the tablet the capsule
of the hour-- Bring sword-eaters
and those who will swallow fire--
Fetch the guardian

to flatten the wheelchair,
to hoist it toward heaven:
the public shuttle awaits
the ceaseless trips to the clinic.
To the bedside manner
summon witness: this medic's
disdain toward patients the physician's dismissal
of pain--
And call the druggist, again, to drug us senseless--

Bring a nomad to index our debts
tuck each invoice into broken walls

of regret-- Call the cleric the clerk
the messengers divine--