By SIU Press
“In this stunning poetry debut, Charif Shanahan explores what it means to be fully human in our wounded and divided world. Queer and light-skinned, with a Black mother from Morocco and a white father from the United States, Shanahan’s speaker navigates the constructs of race and gender, through the lenses of colonialism and immigration, exposing, with nuance and complexity, the instability of those constructs and emphasizing the divisiveness inherent in the naming of any one thing.
“With poems that weave from Marrakesh to Zurich to London, and through history to the present day, this book is, on its surface, an unrelenting exploration of identity in personal and collective terms. Yet the collection is, most deeply, about intimacy and love, the inevitability of human separation and the challenge of human connection. Urging us to reexamine our own place in the broader human tapestry, Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing announces the arrival of a powerful and necessary new voice.”
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Charif Shanahan, #BlackPoetsSpeakOut
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On Cave Canem.
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Writing & Resistance Poetry, featuring Shanahan and Matt Petronzio, Hafizah Geter, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, & Danniel Schoonebeek.
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In The Baffler.
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CharifShanahan.com.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on January 20, 2017