BOOKS

DISPATCHES FROM EVEREST 

Fomite Press
Pub. Date: January 6, 2017

The lyrical poems in Dispatches from Everest attempt to probe the thoughts and experiences of George Leigh Mallory on his third and final expedition to Everest. They are meditations on what may have passed through the senses of the great mountaineer, particularly after the fall, as the storm clouds closed in and his family and the living world seemed farther away than ever.


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BOUNDARIES 

Blue Lyra Press Delphi Series, Vol. 4 
Pub. Date: November 19, 2016

A beautiful set of 3 distinct chapbooks of poems by 3 different poets in one single bound volume. 


The poems in Boundaries wander through the vulnerable world in search of what connects us. Written with intimacy and attuned to the differences that foster empathy, what I like is how these poems do not suppose answers for suffering but instead invite me to look outward, to look up from the page and take notice of what’s around. At this short collection’s core is a reverence for life amid conflict, and a sense of wonder that lives beyond the words.  – Dorianne Laux

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COVER DESIGN BY CLAIRE ZOGHB

SMALL HOUSE BREATHING

Quercus Review Poetry Series Annual Book Award Winner, 2008

Love poems come in many forms, and Claire Zoghb's, first full-length collection, Small House Breathing, is first and foremost a book of love poems. She embraces the man who has become her husband, his family, the cultures in which he was rooted, and the ones to which he and now she---return. These poems form a tapestry that is sometimes tragic, often poignant, sometimes outside of and keenly observant, sometimes inside of and empathically imagined--and always loving. In a bold and unexpected literary move, in the many-sectioned poem, Self-Portrait, the poet becomes her husband, his brothers, and her mother- and father-in-law, and in doing so both tells critical pieces of their collective story and authenticates her own position within this family. Some stories are ours to tell because we are born to them; some are delivered to us by the acts and accidents of love . . . the families found . . . and sometimes lost too soon. What Zoghb knows is that love is declared and confirmed and honored by story. At the same time, these poems reveal a truer, broader definition of family, one that can reach across the divides of oceans, cultures, generations and can make a home of the entirely unfamiliar. There is passion in these poems fierce and solemn and tender, and a dazzling hope.  —Pit Pinegar  

Deeply rooted in place, poems in Claire Zoghb’s  Small House Breathing are messengers of shadow, but also messengers of light [. . .].  What unites this intense and compelling collection is Zoghb’s knowledge that what finally joins generations and different cultures is the human spirit which refuses to let passion and laughter get swallowed even in a world that threatens to drown out song.  Teaching us how to stay centered, how to rise, the music and wisdom in this shimmering collection of poems linger first in the ear, but finally anchor in the heart. —Vivian Shipley

Claire Zoghb's poems move between cities, among languages, and across dangerous terrain where boundaries shift and allegiances are always in question. Yet, although the complicated relationships that inform this riveting collection are fraught with ambiguity, and the terms of engagement—both private and public—are difficult, each poem contains at its core her hard messages of love, like the seeds in the apple her lover consumes whole. —Marie Harris, New Hampshire Poet Laureate, 1999-2004

Claire Zoghb's meticulously formed poems bear witness to the textures of individual lives and communities.  They are muscular, compassionate, and unafraid of the dark.  Zoghb's poems embody a sensuous, particular world and simultaneously penetrate its mysteries. —Margaret Lloyd


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