Nineveh

Zohar Atkins

• Publisher: Carcanet Poetry
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781784107390
• eBook ISBN:
  9781784107406
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

A collision of the sacred and the absurd in contemporary verse.

Zohar Atkins's Nineveh blends modernist sensibilities with humor and profound learning. Taking cues from literary giants like Edmond Jabes and John Ashbery, Atkins crafts poems that blur the lines between the religious and secular, offering fresh interpretations of biblical narratives in a contemporary context.

Experience a world where Cain and Abel are business executives, and God binge-watches TV. Nineveh invites you to explore the unexpected intersections of tradition and modernity, inviting both awe and contemplation. Perfect for readers seeking poetry that challenges conventions and embraces the enigmatic.

Outside Echoes

The best way to satisfy your baby

is surely

not by junking it.

Start again with smoke

on the face

of distinction.

Start with the neutral-

ised myth of

necessary ancestors.

I knew it was a lie

to use signs

you would take

As colonial, but nu?

We were playing

it out, each

Turn a negation

split to accord

what no time can

Afford. Let the page

dictate you

for a change.

Let meno-pause

be literal, hot

as an archetype.

Let the typography

of state violence

not be charmed

Through proximity.

Notice the Guatemalan

figure placing onions

And peppers

back in their proper

stall.

Will you prefer the hedge

fund manager

with the blind daughter

Over the night-shift golem?

Will you point out

the false logic

Of this binary

and not see that you also

use it? Today’s thieves

Are tomorrow’s resisters.

Today’s desecrators

are yesterday’s

Sanctifiers...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Protest
• System Baby
• The Sin
• Fake Judaism
• The Binding of Isaac
• Some Pogs
• Fugue or Fondue?
• Outside Echoes
• Déjà Vu
• Seeker’s Psalm
• Descent
• Song of Myself (Apocryphal)
• The Oy of the Poyem: 28 Exercises in non-Mastery
• Poetry TedTalk Notes
• Poetry Is Failure by Other Means
• Soundbytes
• Tosefta
• Say
• Dear Guru
• Dementia
• Letting Nothing Wait
• Villanelle
• Hermeneutics
• What Did the Heavenly Ministers Do?
• In the Beginning
• Cain and Abel
• Radish
• Teraphim
• Prayer
• Rahab
• Where, Oh Lord?
• Lord, You Know
• Praying with My Feet
• CV
• Self-Portrait As a Poetry Bot
• Apologies in Advance
• Innocence Is Never Luxuriant
• Subway Poem
• These Gyros of Inattention
• Sent
• The Consolation of Poetry
• Mychal
• David
• Two Great Lights
• Lost and Found
• Opportunity Cost
• Nineveh
• Elegy For A Special Kid
• Yom Kippur 2017
• Pirkei Avot
• Blackbirds
• Why You No Longer Pray Amongst the Ruins
• Doorknob Poem
• Without Without Title
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright