Art in the City
SA Express-News' Editor
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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 strong 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 in the woodsbefore the apples hung from the trees and wheatgrew 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 storyteller 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 tale 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.”
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Art in the City
FOREWORD
Valerie Martin Bailey
S.A.P.A. Poet Laureate, Publisher, and Editor
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.
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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.
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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 good 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.
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Good Reads Review:
The Garden of Milk and Wine
"From tales about medical school in Tehran, student uprisings against the Shah, his mother's sermons and his questions about religion, the workings of the universe, the terror which awaits child-brides, his loves, his family and ob-gyn practice to taking call in San Antonio, Dr. Saidi's writing reveals his gentle personality, respect for human beings, empathy for their suffering, and ability to speak truth to power in a calm, reasoned way as well as his particularly entertaining wit."
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Name The River
​Maria Oddo
Editor, Graphic Artist, and Painter
The move from indigenous people to colonial settlers to modern tourists highlights the contrast between the spiritual and commercial nicely. It explores the history of the area with the river as a witness - the constant. I get the sense that this is written as the Bible with a creation story, the fall of man and redemption or at least acceptance of what is. Beautifully written.
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Color of Faith
Collection of Poems
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James Brandenburg, MA, MED, LPC, LMFT, is a writer, editor
a certified poetry therapist and the author of two poetry books.
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Mo H Saidi weaves poetic images and metaphors into the scientist's attention to detail, thus taking us on a journey from his birthplace in Iran to his retirement in SA and providing insights into nature, man's faith, politics, art, and his concept of love.
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Esther and the Genius
Cary Clack
Express-News Columnist and Editor
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The dissolution of a family can happen slowly over the years, suddenly in one explosive act or, as is the case In Mo Saidi’s compelling new novel, “Esther,” one precedes the other.
Dr. Jordan Hartman’s brilliance as a surgeon, lecturer and money magnet to his university far exceeds his roles as a husband and-tragically- father. In the aftermath of heartbreak, his wife, Esther, finds solace, strength and spiritual kinship in the life of her Biblical namesake, the “Queen of Persia.”
Saidi is a man gifted in medicine and letters. In this wonderfully conceived and crafted novel, he shows that there are lessons in the past that can help with how we live in the present.
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Esther and the Genius
James R. Adair
Editor and Publisher, UTSA
Dr. Jordan Hartman is a medical genius, a loving husband, a perfectionist, and prone to fits of rage. His colleagues admire and fear him. His wife Esther adores him and excuses his temper, until one fateful afternoon when Dr. Hartman confronts a teenage drug dealer who is threatening his son with a gun—and Dr. Hartman has brought his gun, too. Esther explores the relationship between a good woman, who looks to her biblical namesake as an example of courage, and a complex man whose life is devoted to healing. Along the way, the characters in the story struggle to make gut-wrenching decisions regarding medical procedures, love and loss, and an impending criminal trial. From the outset, Esther carries the reader along on a path that may lead to destruction or redemption—reminiscent of the Chinvat Bridge—depending on the choices one makes.
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The Marchers
Amazon Review:
This book was both a vivid account of Iran under the Shah and of the Iranian revolution, told with the authenticity of an author who had experienced the regimes. It is also a compelling page-turner story. I recommend it to those who want to know more about modern Iran from the Inside, and to those who enjoy a well-crafted compelling story.
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The Marchers
Amazon Review:
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The Marchers: A Novel is a captivating story. The author creates an easy path for readers to fall in love with young Iranian patriots and their families and mourn multiple regimes of mass murder. I read it in two days as I couldn't put it down.
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Between A and Z
By Mo H Saidi
Reviewed by Carol Coffee Reposa
Professor Emeritus, San Antonio College
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The title of the book is apt, as its contents take the reader from Tehran to New York, Soweto to Lhasa, Antarctica to drought-parched San Antonio. The 62 poems in this collection comprise far more than a travelogue; however, their topics reach from sea to metaphoric sea, from the virtuosity of a cellist and the habits of swans to environmental degradation and budding romance in a piano bar.
Much of the work draws on the author's long and distinguished medical career. In the haunting poem "Birth," Saidi memorably captures the instant of life's beginning, the "sudden whimper" and "fresh voice." Elsewhere, he examines with equal clarity the moment of life's end, along with all the physiological events between those milestones, including the ravages of Alzheimer's, which he conveys poignantly in "Quiet George": " He doesn't remember the first son/ who never returned from Vietnam,/ his daughter who now lives in Japan,/ his high school sweetheart, his wife--their/ honeymoon in Cancun--her recent funeral." In all the poems inspired by his life as a doctor, Saidi brings to bear the scenes he depicts all-encompassing compassion and a willingness to look without blinking.
Saidi's poetry also explores the sometimes tenuous boundary between the literal and the figurative, the everyday and the visionary. In the tradition of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, Saidi harnesses the energy of myth, allegory, and fable to express present-day complexities. In "Fifty-Five Percent," the poet combines humor and satire to reinvent the Biblical Adam and Eve, recasting them as clueless Millennials who consume mindlessly, spread disease, and pollute the Earth. Another cautionary fable, "Narrow Streams," also involves a visit to the Book of Genesis, but this time, God Himself is the culprit: in a drunken reverie abetted by Satan, God creates The First Couple, who then proceeds to despoil everything around them. Having sobered up and repented, God moves to another part of the Universe, selects a promising planet, and vows to start over. Once again, though, Satan takes a hand and serves God "fermented nectar," and this causes history to repeat itself. God and His creations, it seems, are slow to learn from their mistakes.
Even a quick reading of this volume reveals Saidi's strong social conscience. "The Songs of Sorrow," for example, takes an unflinching look at the brutalization of women in the author's native Iran, a subjugation that includes honor killings, marital rape, and the public stoning of homeless prostitutes. Even recreation there consigns females to the ranks of the less than human: men take the waters along a pleasant shoreline, while women, fully robed, are sent to "a remote rocky beach/ next to heaps of garbage where/ a sewage line defines their desolation." Similarly, the intensely anti-theocratic "Tomorrow" contrasts the world view of Osama bin Laden, who views himself as "the shadow of God" and seeks to extinguish from civilization all traces of Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and Lincoln, with that of the scientists and humanitarians who strive desperately "to save the ailing planet." Saidi celebrates the presence of the Divine wherever he happens to see it. In "Nonbelievers," he finds God in the face of a homeless man, a personified oversoul for the Millennium: "He pushes His cart loaded with rags, leftover meals/ squashed fruit taken from garbage cans. He takes/ refuge under a bridge decorated with graffiti among/ discarded beer cans next to a patch of stinking sludge." The poet ultimately finds as much to praise as to condemn in the space he inhabits, and some of the poems are unambiguously utopian in outlook. "We the Wanderers" extols the courage of people ready to leave their homelands to build new lives: "We arrived/ aboard ships and planes or on foot/...We long for freedom, fall in love/ and seek work. We build warm/ abodes, read, and write.../ we are farmers, tool makers, musicians/ and writers. We sing and work; unhindered..."
Few human events escape the author's notice--or his laser pen--but in the end, it is love in all its permutations that drives his poetry: joyous love of family, music, art, and travel; of medicine, friends, and nature; of the entire cosmos. For Mo H Saidi, the proverbial wine bottle is not half full but endlessly brimming. Between A and Z spreads before the reader a poetic feast.
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Press
Roberto Bonazzi, San Antonio Express News
April 18, 2014