Review of Solmaz Sharif’s Look
Review of Solmaz Sharif’s Look
The room stands still as Iranian-American Poet, Solmaz Sharif, approaches the podium. She begins to read her first book of poetry, a collection titled Look that revolves around the repercussions of warfare and uses word choice as a lens to view identity. In Look, she interweaves words taken directly from the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms and phrases it into her own narrative which illustrates the effects that the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s has on families, specifically hers and how that shapes her American identity during the War on Terror. What’s interesting is how this military language de-humanizes and sterilizes human life. The Kenyon Review writes, “Sharif suggests that humanity sometimes selects people to be not human,” (Higgs). There are many examples of this throughout her collection with her ideas of stray children and dogs left alone at the roadside during war, forgotten. The redacted letters addressed to Sharif in Reaching Guantanamo illustrate control over language, which is a violence in itself. The receiver only gets a hollowed out idea of the intent of the writer, and in that is further distanced from humanity than a prison sentence. What’s interesting is the unique way Sharif combines the personal with the political which challenges the general complacent attitude of Americans about war, and forces us to examine the effects it has through her parallels. In the title piece, Look, she writes, “Whereas the lover made my heat rise, rise so that heat/sensors were trained on me/they could read my THERMAL SHADOW through the roof and through/the wardrobe,” (Sharif). What’s interesting about her work is the juxtaposition of the vulnerable intimacy of this lover and the stoic fear that is so common in war, highlighted by war jargon. By using this language she explains the very real domination of boundaries and how that line is constantly blurred in warfare and identity. She places many intimate moments against jarring images showing frankly that innocence was lost to this fear. For example in Force Visibility she begins, “Everywhere we went, I went/ in pigtails/no one could see—/ribbon curled/by a scissors sharp edge,” (Sharif 21). This sentence illustrates that her innocence is somehow disguised or not known to the outside world. The repetition of went, and alliteration of scissors and sharp make the sentence rhythmic, but also their is a distinct contrast of unlike ideas. Usually ribbon and pigtails symbolize innocence but scissors and sharp make it appear as if that this unguarded side of her is being invaded or ignored.
From Sharif’s Personal Effects, she takes this idea further. She writes, “Daily I sit/ with the language/they’ve made/of our language/to NEUTRALIZE/ the CAPABILITY of LOW DOLLAR VALUE ITEMS/ like you. /You are what is referred to as/ a “CASUALTY.” Sharif frames warfare in the jargon it's reported from the stance of someone actually enduring it which challenges readers to question the very preconceptions we have. She flips the idea of a “casualty” or being a victim and forces the reader to see the valor and bravery it really takes to be on the front lines, or having your home ripped apart from explosions. In military terms, the enemy is very black and white, however, Sharif constructs her poems in such a way that makes you see the truly tragic ways language has failed us, and the complexity of an experience.
In Desired Appreciation, Sharif ends that poem with the question from her therapist, “So you feel dangerous?’ She said/ Yes./So you feel like a threat?’/Yes/” (Sharif). That is exactly what Solmaz Sharif is, a threat to preconceived notions of wrong and right. Warfare is never clear-cut, there is a complexity to human experience, and a violence against our language which changes the way we view “a thing” whether we know it or not. Look is such an important collection to the very real and scary times we are facing in our current political climate. Sharif creates a very personal exploration into the powerful effects of language, the very real experiences of loss and violence against each other when we view the world as black and white, wrong and right. The term Look, taken directly from the DOD means “In mine warfare, a period during which a mine circuit is receptive to influence.” Solmaz Sharif single-handedly sits in that period, and challenges the way we think about media, and language as an entirety. She makes us question if us a readers and individuals have our own identity changed as a result of the violence against language and the lens we are viewing war. She culminates these dangerous terms with the vulnerable and personal, reclaiming them as a part of her story and in its claiming shapes her own American identity and voice that transcends the page.
