This is Why We Don’t Look Back

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In This Is Why We Don’t Look Back, Sarah Sassoon does look back—and we readers are grateful that we get to be part of her Judeo-Arabic speaking Iraqi Jewish family.  Appealing to all our senses, Sassoon allows us to experience her grandmother’s kitchen with its garlic-filled “whiff of Baghdad”; her foremothers who were dhimmis, “harbored in black hijabs/ the color of wailing”; the “syntax” of the moon, “punctuated by teatime laced with honeyed lemon, mint, and cardamom.” Sassoon’s ghazal, “Once Upon a Time in Baghdad,” is a tour de force, ending with two deeply moving and evocative lines: “Searching for Al-Rashid street I frantically seek my Arabic name, joy and delight./ Hebrew princess, exile echoes empty in my Yahudi blood—a whisper of Baghdad.”

Nancy Naomi Carlson
Judge, 2002 Jewish Women’s Poetry Prize

 

Sarah Sassoon’s debut collection is a bold and honest attempt to unearth her own family history of Iraqi Jews, a history long undermined and overlooked. “This is why my grandparents are silent,” Sasson says in a quiet, unflinching voice, “their history dumped in the river.” Her words both echo and respond to those of Adrienne Rich, who seeks “the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth” In lyrical language, Sassoon concocts a sensuous collection of poetry, brimming over with jasmine, garlic, rationed eggs in a refugee camp, cardamon, purple figs and plump Medjool dates. Sassoon looks back – and dares you to do the same.

Joanna Chen
Translator of Less Like a Dove, Frayed Light, My Wild Garden

In This Is Why We Don’t Look Back, Sarah Sassoon does look back—and we readers are grateful that we get to be part of her Judeo-Arabic speaking Iraqi Jewish family. Appealing to all our senses, Sassoon allows us to experience her grandmother’s kitchen with its garlic-filled “whiff of Baghdad”; her foremothers who were dhimmis, “harbored in black hijabs/ the color of wailing”; the “syntax” of the moon, “punctuated by teatime laced with honeyed lemon, mint, and cardamom.” Sassoon’s ghazal, “Once Upon a Time in Baghdad,” is a tour de force, ending with two deeply moving and evocative lines: “Searching for Al-Rashid street I frantically seek my Arabic name, joy and delight./ Hebrew princess, exile echoes empty in my Yahudi blood—a whisper of Baghdad.”- Nancy Naomi Carlson - Judge, 2002 Jewish Women's Poetry Prize
Sarah Sassoon’s debut collection is a bold and honest attempt to unearth her own family history of Iraqi Jews, a history long undermined and overlooked. “This is why my grandparents are silent,” Sasson says in a quiet, unflinching voice, “their history dumped in the river.” Her words both echo and respond to those of Adrienne Rich, who seeks “the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth” In lyrical language, Sassoon concocts a sensuous collection of poetry, brimming over with jasmine, garlic, rationed eggs in a refugee camp, cardamon, purple figs and plump Medjool dates. Sassoon looks back - and dares you to do the same.- Joanna Chen - Translator of Less Like a Dove, Frayed Light, My Wild Garden

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