Art in the City
Eakin Press
Mo Saidi has the soul of a poet. The poetry within him was a smoldering ember during his childhood in Iran. After completing his medical education, the ember sparked into a flame, which he kept alive during his long and distinguished medical career. Now retired, Saidi pursues his dream of writing, and his passion for poetry is a fervent blaze.
Saidi’s unique style has been shaped by his life experiences and marked by his knowledge and appreciation of many parts of the world. Provincial interests or attitudes do not restrict him, and although his words are directed to a worldwide readership, his poems are intimate and warm. He is a cosmopolitan poet, marked by sophistication and savoir-faire from his urban lifestyle and extensive travels. He is distinguished by a diligent pursuit of learning and an imaginative response to his ever-broadening horizons.
As the editor of Encore, the anthology of prize poems for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, I have an opportunity to read a great deal of sound poetry. Seeing one of Saidi’s poems win first place and inclusion in Encore was rewarding. I have watched the development of Saidi’s poetry during the last five years, and I can say without hesitation that Mo is ready to share his poetry with the world. I am delighted to be his publisher and friend.
Art in the City is Saidi’s debut collection of poetry, and I believe readers of this book will look forward to reading more of his poetry in the future. Find a comfortable nook and settle down for a great read.
Valerie Martin Bailey, San Antonio Poets Association Poet Laureate, Publisher, & Editor
Everything Was Fine
Everything was fine except for the faucet
it leaked continuously all night
the bed was stiff, the room was cold
and the night was long.
The thermostat was in the landlord’s hall
the snow drifted outside and obstructed the door
the overburdened heater creaked all night
the thin blanket couldn’t keep the heat.
A few hitches, yet everything was fine.
I lingered on the bed, in the darkness
I longed for her warm thighs, hands
the gap between us was a deep gulf.
I tossed for a long while till some slants
of light arrived; I saw her reposed smile.
She glided over the crack
and landed softly in my arms.
We pressed onto each other;
and like the morning sun, she was warm.
The snow was melting outside.
She was in my arms, and everything was fine.
Review
Art in the City is Mo H Saidi’s first book of poetry, following a lifetime of writing about medical research. The book won the 2007 Eakin Memorial Book Publishing Award of the Poetry Society of Texas. Saidi’s poems exhibit a robust literary voice and a depth of knowledge about people, emotions, history, and art. They are drawn from both his medical and his literary background. The novelist Robert Flynn writes of Saidi’s work in Art in the City, that he “lays bare the intersections between . . . beauty and disaster.” and the writer Wendy Barker adds, “The poems . . . provide a garden of their own; in a chaotic world of heated violence, they offer a cool, reflective center . . .”
But art is the overwhelming reason that has kept Saidi buoyant and enthusiastic. In the Poem “Four Seasons,” he states his belief in the eternity of art that precedes all creation:
Before water and land parted and the mountains rose
before the air moved, the clouds and showers began to pour
before fish appeared and birds flew into the woods
before the apples hung from the trees and wheat
grew in the Fertile Crescent and danced in the breeze
there was nothing present in the colorless space but verse.
The poems of Saidi display the conglomeration of gifts he brings to his work: a history of medicine and intellect, a rich ancestry where his Iranian heritage meets the claim of being American, a concern for the sad shenanigans of the world, an appreciation for fine music, and a sensibility of being an observer of the world alongside a philosophical ear and eye, a deep questioner of the actions of those in the world. At the center of it all is a story teller with a rich accent that elevates the elegance of his paced delivery; a man who knows secrets and stories and has the instinct to tell a long past due story of art in a city in America, a story of aliens who sing as they climb ashore: “The aliens are singing as they climb ashore / the cool breeze waves their salty cloaks / they walk along our well-trodden trails.”