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In this exciting follow-up to his acclaimed collection The Lost Arabs, award-winning poet Omar Sakr delves deep into his loves and losses to create a riveting literary experience. Asking questions of timeliness and timelessness, ranging between the present and the past, Non-Essential Work is a restless and relentless volume that showcases a poet unquestionably in his prime.
Author: Omar Sakr
Paperback Published 4 April 2023 128 pages
‘Omar Sakr's Non-Essential Work renews the lyric mode as a way to contend with the world. I trusted that each poem would change me a little, and they did. The book amounts to a "beautiful hour" that makes "colossal ruin" into a good enough reason to live. A stunning achievement by an inimitable poet.’ -Billy-Ray Belcourt
‘Omar Sakr writes ferociously fine poetry so alive it trembles on the page. Feel its muscle of pacing, the richly woven weave of story/mind/leaping wild cries steeped in strong tea. “Loneliness feels like family once/you have known it long enough…” or “Everything is a miracle when you are alive./ I am learning that against my will.” Such honest sorrow, love, truth, swirling in the same rich brew, such history studded with humor, the “non-essential” is clearly sly humility. Vastly political in the most intimate way, it’s impossible to draw any borderlines here between great, and great.’- Naomi Shihab Nye