The Flayed City

by Hari Alluri

Hari Alluri has been described by US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera as a writer who -carries a new, quiet brush of multi-currents, of multi-worlds to paint this holographic life-scape.- In The Flayed City, he offers an intimate look into the lives of city dwellers and immigrants in a collection of charged poems that sweep together -an archipelago song- scored by memory and landscape, history and mythology, desire and loss. Driven by what is residual--displacement, family, violent yet delicate masculinity, undervalued yet imperative work--Alluri's lines quiver with the poet's distinctive rendering of praise and lament steeped with -gravity and blood- where -the smell of ants being born surrounds us- and -city lights form constellations // invented to symbolize war.- The Flayed City offers a powerful glimpse into a secondary world whose cities, cultural histories and trajectories are hybrids or -immigrated- versions of this one.

Genres: Poetry

122 pages, Paperback

First published March 28, 2017

About the author

Hari Alluri is the author of The Flayed City (Kaya, 2017), Carving Ashes (CiCAC, 2013) and the chapbook The Promise of Rust (Mouthfeel, 2016). An award-winning poet, educator, and teaching artist, his work appears widely in anthologies, journals and online venues, including Chautauqua, Poetry International and Split This Rock. He is a founding editor at Locked Horn Press, where he has co-edited two anthologies, Gendered & Written: Forums on Poetics and Read America(s): An Anthology. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University and, along with the Federico Moramarco Poetry International Teaching Prize, he has received VONA/Voices and Las Dos Brujas fellowships and a National Film Board of Canada grant. Hari immigrated to Vancouver, Coast Salish territories at age twelve, and writes there again.

Reviews

[My Tam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect book of poetry - if that’s possible. Found this gen at City Lights Books in SF. Read it cover to cover with the sound of the trolley going by. An impressive collection for a brilliant young talent crossing the chasm of immigrant experience, urban nuance, mourning and loss, and the celebration of beauty.

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hari Alluri's poetry is the type of poetry that, once you've heard him perform/read poetry/speak, you can't read it without hearing it in his voice. This book is alive. It breathes, it sings, it whispers, and it weeps. This poetry gives us a piece of the brilliant, funky, colourful, and honestly indescribable spirit of Hari. It is such a joy, such an honor, to read a book like this.

[Sam Bizarrus · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I, a cup, which is a man,/ I beg./ Drought,/ I beg, give water/ to my prey." Alluri's poetic voice is clear and liquid, like a pool of water that becomes sustenance or manna. Alluri balances fine observations and emotional candor in this startling depiction of a city falling apart, or rather torn apart by war, and a young growing up inside it. It's a book that wrestles with identity in the midst of destruction, which is particularly haunting in the present moment. "What am I--with the weight/ of a battlefield comb. What am I--blood" writes the speaker, as the violence of war renders the person a mere object, or site of violence, inanimate in the rubble. It's a challenging, heavy collection, for sure, but one that sparkles on every page. "Perhaps what I am is a dance/ wandering in search of bodies" proclaims the speaker, converting the violence inflicted on bodies to a kind of radiating energy--to literal movement, as the aesthetic of resistance.

[Nathalie Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this one out loud to myself and enjoyed the flow and cadence of the work. I find myself between beauty and the thoughtful mundane in this work. After I read this book, reading another fiction title after felt slow compared to Alluri's seamless poetry.

[Harry Stefanakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw. Intense. Truth.

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The concept of this book isn’t my jam, but I stayed for the beautiful moments, insights, and lines.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great poetry collection! The way the words went together in the verses was so interesting and fresh. Lots of great pieces in here. Enjoyed the first half more than the second half

[lou garciadolnik · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh I've been delaying the end of this fevered love letter ~ how am i supposed to move on from the dust and dirt and sweeping of this book..................

[Robert Rauschenberg]

Recommended by JP Pluecker (Antenna).