Floating Life

by Moez Surani

Floating Life , Moez Surani's second collection of poetry, takes the reader on a dizzying tour of the world, stopping in Cairo, Muju, Madrid and Cape Breton. Interwoven through these evocative glimpses of places and the people that live in them are poems exploring relationships, reflecting on identity and considering the passing of time.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2011

Reviews

[THE TORONTO QUARTERLY · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hey, Everyone! Please check out my most recent interview with award-winning poet Moez Surani as we discuss his second collection of poetry Floating Life (Wolsak and Wynn, 2012). Read the interview now on my TTQ Blog.
http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.c...

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Floating Life is divided into four parts...

from the first part...

When I am reading
I feel like life is outside.

When I am outside
I feel like life is in books.

I can never
find life.

- When I Am Reading, pg. 13

*

You called last night to see what I would like to do
and I dithered and made an excuse. There were
not enough hours again yesterday. I had books

open on my desk and I was in
a fever.

There was no
time for dalliances. Now though,
I am in no mood to be alone.

I will go out with whomever calls.

- Calls, pg. 19

*

Pulling out,
I left my mark
on your city wall.

- Parisian Graffiti, pg. 24

from the second part...

Jude's incessant
unhappiness.

Passing between
Sue and Arabella

in constant epiphany
about the other.

Thinking of this
as I bargained

for a thick silver bracelet
you may enjoy wearing.

- pg. 33

*

I propose tandem reincarnations.

If I were an avocado's stone
you could be the yellow, the green
and the leading branch.

And were I a phone's receiver,
you would be an ear, a mouth,
a shoulder and a hand.

Chile and Argentina.

If I become water
you could be portions of Indonesia. I would
climb you without patience or calm.

Or alternate words
in an evening conversation.

The substance and sleeve. A glove
and pocket.

All these possibilities.

- pg. 41

from the third part...

Walking on Munbaek,

a dog barks at
his other self
behind the mountain.

An ostrich
frightens me.

- pg. 45

*

I have been losing certain friends.

They glide off
beyond communication
make themselves islands
with their wife or live-in girlfriend

and gain others
who flip into extroversion
initiating all kinds of things.

In thirty years, which of us
will grieve or invent Helens?

- pg. 51

from the fourth part...

Side by side, absorbed,
we tried following each other's fingers
that drew constellations we didn't quite know

You hated
the stars

You felt
insignificant
beneath them

I loved
them and felt
so free

- Night, pg. 79

*

Some say I am a great poet
but today I am a great drunk
or great at being like a little boy.
I squint and play around in the park,
my head in your lap, dreaming, lazy, laughing
and our day has come to nothing.
A friend arrives and his child is delighted -
he stumbles with his arms out and jumps too!
But today I am no great poet,
nor any great man.
Today, I am about average.

- Trinity Bellwoods, pg. 92

[Davin Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review on Literatured.com

FLOATING LIFE:
Moez Surani’s poetry deserves to be read as often as possible. As Jacob McArthur Mooney says, he has the cosmopolitanism of Cohen’s early verse. I’d go as far to say that he’s a more worldly Michel Garneau, the famous Québécois writer responsible for translating Cohen.
With a mind ‘boomeranging between tenses’, Surani also has moods that boomerang between literary voices. In the poem “Astrophel & Stella”, Surani’s character delineates a dramatic irony that he thought his lover had left him, via tense change, from past to present, and calmed to find her still there, develops the calm apathy of David W. McFadden

For full article, go to www.literatured.com/floating-life