I Am a Mute Iraqi With a Voice

"Sometimes, a book of poems transcends the form and becomes pure experience. I Am a Mute Iraqi with a Voice is a startling call to memory and mourning for an Iraq that is "dead," an ululation for all that is lost in war after war after war. In these poems, Iraqis are divided not by politics but by location and circumstance; those fortunate enough to live in America are wracked with guilt, and those left behind are trapped indoors. Namou interrogates this split within herself, with poem after poem an attempt to reconcile memories of a life in Baghdad with the safety of suburban American life and see past the divisions of history to an impossibly fraught future. I Am a Mute Iraqi is a troubling, necessary collection of poems urging us to recognize, and never forget, the personal and cultural consequences of war." Trish Harris, founding editor of the Pea River Journal