Fourth Person Singular

by Nuar Alsadir

Claudia Rankine described the poems in Alsadir's first book as 'lawless, ' 'provocative, and 'heartbreaking' as they 'converse from the inside out' come alive in the back and forth of a mind attempting to understand what it means to be in relation to.'
Fourth Person Singular continues to blow open the relationship between self and world in a working through of lyric shame, bending poetic form through fragment, lyric essay, aphorisms mined from the unconscious, and pop-up associations, to explore the complexities, congruities, disturbances - as well as the beauty - involved in self-representation in language. As unexpected as it is bold, Alsadir's ambitious tour de force demands we pay new attention to the current conversation about the nature of lyric - and human relationships - in the 21st century.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published April 11, 2017

Reviews

[Maddie]

Read for Hatred of Poetry Module

A collection that I actually enjoyed! Hitting the right balance between profound and mocking.

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I stood in the loudness of my thoughts like a cut-out superimposed onto the background scene.” From the outset, Nuar Alsadir’s Fourth Person Singular is a robust and daring formal experiment, a work at the intersection of lyric poetry and essay (in a similar vein to works by Claudia Rankine and Maggie Nelson), which seeks to locate the self amidst explorations of psychoanalysis, critical theory, and of course poetry itself. The voice of this extensive and singular work is searching and desperate as it considers itself: “I’m tiptoeing around my life”, “Does my heart sit on fault lines?”, “Dreamt I wrote my autobiography: the pages were blank, the text in footnotes.” This metaliterary sense of the poem comes through in margin notes, wherein “Distance begins in betrayal”, and in such self-referential lines as “The redactions are closer to my heart —”, which says as much with its declaration as its elision. Further, as “We superimpose ourselves onto others each time we address them, which is another way our neighbours become other kinds of self”, how the self is defined relationally becomes increasingly tricky; and later, while riffing on a concept by literary critic Michael Warner, Alsadir writes “You are that indefinite stranger. Can you hear me? I’m writing from elsewhere. And then there’s a tendency towards strange axiomatic subversion: “At the core of mischief is panic”, goes one new truism, as Alsadir continues to find new ways to defamiliarise.

[Tammy V · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll give this 3 stars because it is provocative as a writer reading it. Alsadir pushes the boundaries but no more than I have in my own writing (which gives me permission to continue and something to point to). I ordered the book for a class I am taking, 1 of 4. Of all of them, I like this the least - the need to be "educated" and use big words when little words would do just fine (better because it's supposed to be lyric).

There's a long dense essay on....something....in the middle of the book. Not enough white space and the print small for no reason (throughout the book). Were they trying to save money?

If you like lyric essays and want to push outside your comfort zone, this might give you a hearty shove. Read "Little Fires" if you are interested in a better use of the lyric form.

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

Absolutely one of the most unique collections of the past few years I loved this I can see myself citing it in future & I think Alsadir is incredibly on the mark with her assessment of the modern lyric - this is a long section midway which expands upon this through Lacan and Einstein and so on.

I’m not surprised Claudia Rankine loves this I think it’d be worthwhile going through Citizen via Nuar Alsadir this generation of the fourth-person singular could be, for me, the defining mark of success in contemporary queer and postcolonial poems.

I remember SBW loving this too he presents it as an idiosyncratic expression between poetry and prose I like this assessment I think she’s visible even unintentionally so among a lot of contemporary poets today.

[Alycia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sun is most beautiful just before it rises, like the unspoken before it reaches the world—

I really admire this book. It's a slim volume but it doesn't feel like it, possibly because it's interspersed with prose and/or lyric essay. It's a book that both taught me a lot and provoked new interests. I feel like I could see the brain of it working across the page. It deserves rereading and I will reread it. I can see myself becoming attached to it, liking it more with every iteration. But I also feel like I need to read around the book as well. It touches on quite a lot of theory, some of which I know (and can see alluded to even when it isn't direct), and some which is new to me.

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Pleasure and disgust, the border of desire, of aesthetics, where beauty and the uncanny meet—is this the brink one must always live on, bare and bear, the vulnerability necessitated in feeling alive? When I have bared myself, I feel a compulsion to send out a flurry of signals to adjust the reception of others, to scramble the image that may have been momentarily revealed of me—“

SO FUCKIN GOOD

[Anisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh yes, goodreads exists ..
for this!!!!! changed how i thought about that little thing literature, SO MANY FUNNIES so many PROFOUND THINGS and just so crazily fresh. I was the right amount of baffled by some bits (okay, maybe I was quite lost at time). Honestly I loved the brevity and the ?short, very short essays?

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most philosophical / psychoanalyst poetry I’ve ever read. Very...transparent in the poet’s thinking, stream of consciousness style.

[Alex Purves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Captivating from start to finish. Maybe it just speaks to me but I also wanted to but it for everyone I know.

[Farhana Qazi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique voice with varying writing / poetic techniques makes this book a lively read.

[Shahidah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aphorism, Detail, Anecdote, One Intellectual's Beginnings.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant

[Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't know what was going on most of the time.

[Eamon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodbye Forever GoodReads

[Colleen Grablick · Rating 5 out of 5]

living on the brink of pleasure and disgust (have a fever rn)

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

wildly incoherent/trying too hard at times --
somewhat revelatory at others
overall a solid guide(-ish) to self exploration
doesn't overstay its welcome

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really pleasant reading experience! A nice combination of big ideas and pretty words.

[Carley Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a smart beautiful book. I have t read anything like it. Get it!

[Chris]

"Fourth Person Singular is poetry that is neither verse nor exactly prose poetry, but aphorism, perception, quotation, annotation, a squeezing between the gaps in the windows and doorways of experience seeking for air. It is more than its pieces: it is that whole that is the complex and revelatory poem."
- George Szirtes

That quote, from the book flap of my copy of Fourth Person Singular recounts my experience of reading it better than I can at this point. At times, the aphorisms, perceptions, quotations, and annotations leave so much else to think about.
Now, I plan to start a book translated by George Szirtes...