Hard Damage

by Aria Aber

Hard Damage works to relentlessly interrogate the self and its shortcomings. In lyric and documentary poems and essayistic fragments, Aria Aber explores the historical and personal implications of Afghan American relations. Drawing on material dating back to the 1950s, she considers the consequences of these relations—in particular the funding of the Afghan mujahedeen, which led to the Taliban and modern-day Islamic terrorism—for her family and the world at large.

Invested in and suspicious of the pain of family and the shame of selfhood, the speakers of these richly evocative and musical poems mourn the magnitude of citizenship as a state of place and a state of mind. While Hard Damage is framed by free-verse poetry, the middle sections comprise a lyric essay in fragments and a long documentary poem. Aber explores Rilke in the original German, the urban melancholia of city life, inherited trauma, and displacement on both linguistic and environmental levels, while employing surrealist and eerily domestic imagery.
 

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Womens, Politics, 21st Century, Contemporary, Germany

126 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2019

Reviews

[Natalie Eilbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard Damage by Aria Aber is and will remain a book I keep close to my chest. Aber navigates language through proximities, whether in the mishearing of bombs for "balms" or in Widderuf with Rilke or in the rupture of country in the midst of regime changes. Few collections are able to accomplish what Aber accomplishes in Hard Damage. Her words are imperiled by beauty of witness and the existential relationship to diaspora. She demands the origins of which she was deprived, writing poems about Wisconsin by its pre-colonized name of Meskonsing, knowing there is no word for "home" in Dari, the glimmering image of Kabul—her foremost idea of home—at the mercy of decadeslong invasion and occupation. Reading these lines, we feel the heat of her politics, but this is also a poet so ensorcelled to verse that I believe, briefly once more, that we deserve new ambassadors of the world. Aria Aber would surely be one. Seriously, read this book. It is one of the best debut collections I've ever read.

[ayşe · Rating 5 out of 5]

im speechless the second half is actually perfect and some of the best poems I've ever read i loved rilke and i its so unique and interesting and beautiful.... im in love with aria abers mind and i need to reread this as soon as i can ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ please read this its incredible!!!!!!! diaspora poetry at its best

[el · Rating 4 out of 5]

ummmm this was so mind-alteringly beautiful and definitely deserved a more compressed reading period, so this star rating is a placeholder until i can hold this in physical form and reread. definitely a collection too vast and intelligent for me to fully appreciate on a first pass; so many languages in this, so many predecessors familial and artistic/political, so much of history probed and complicated!!!!! i love aria aber's brain.

some personal favorites:

What once was feathered like a voice, a seduction / of finches, now is vigorous, bids me into the sun.

—

Just the scent of uterus (wet dog / and sandalwood) and the bee-funeral burning / on my compost heap remain.

—

To hear a droning in the distance and not suffer a sudden execution of your center, but think of bees drowned in jars of raspberry jam, their dead husks on the windowsill all summer, sweat pooling under your shirt, between your legs, face against the hum of the fan.

—

the price, we think, the price was worth it said Albright about Iraqi child casualties / the prophet with the face of light / the sequined, heavy velvet of our mothers’ good dresses / the smell of grass in his hair after rolling in meadows / the unimaginable god / the terrible time to be alive.

—

Even I, with my old-world passport / and earflap hat, am settling, / at least, on what it means / to be American, walking / by the cattle pasture, which, / poisoned by a faulty protein, / has turned the buttery grass / a psychedelic blue.

[Jatan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bonded over the ‘brown kid with German last name’ connection while browsing through the neighborhood indie bookstore.

Loved the poems, especially the section that plays on the Rilke quote* — Lass dir Alles geschehen: Schönheit und Schrecken (Tr: Let everything happen to you: Beauty and Terror).

* which seems to have recently entered the broader cultural consciousness through JoJo Rabbit.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

A true 5 star read. This collection is astounding! As cohesive as it is challenging, it's one of those books that makes you feel privileged as a reader.

It's one of the most compelling books I've read about the experience of diaspora; Aber was born in Germany to Afghan refugees and later immigrated to the US. She feels simultaneously connected to and distanced from her family's homeland. Aber expertly weaves between English and German to fill in the weak spots of each language and illuminate new ideas. Several images recur throughout the collection, including her mother's time in prison and green eyes, carrying the reader from poem to poem while fostering a sense of urgency.

There are a couple of longer poem sequences that are quite ambitious in concept, but Aber pulls them off with aplomb. I especially appreciated the section inspired by Rilke’s most famous quote, “Let everything happen to you: Beauty and Terror ... No feeling is final.” Aber takes each word from the quote, explores the etymology in English and Deutsch, and uses that etymology as a jumping-off point to explore familial relation and personal history.

There's an element of surprise (sometimes shock) to her writing that continually astounded me. Several of the poems put me in the mind of Sylvia Plath's work, so I was pleased to see Aber give her a shoutout in the Notes, calling Plath "eternal goddess." Yes!

"Funeral in Paris" is one of the best poems I've ever read, full stop. A complete masterpiece from the first line to the last. I happened to see it RT'd into my Twitter timeline a few weeks ago and was inspired to order the full collection, and I'm so glad I did.

I cannot recommend this collection strongly enough! Take your time with it--I know I did.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

6 stars. Tell me what the frickityfrackity was in this book. Tell me why I cannot write like this. It was so much more about the feeling than words. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way about someone else’s writing—or maybe I have, but now I’m realizing that those feelings were small and compressed and incomparable to how I’m feeling after having read this book. Reading each poem, I felt like I understood it before I even actually went to process it. It’s like when your mom gives you a look and you intuitively know what it means before having to ask yourself what it means; I understood how each poem wanted me to feel before knowing what every line was trying to say. Her poetry reminds me a lot of Louise Glück’s, specifically the way in which the language is minimalistic yet emotional—able to gush through you quickly but in a way that isn’t overpowering. Everyone at camp was raving about her, and I totally get the hype. What a read—and definitely worth rereading as well.

“Who’d loiter around cricks / glistening with oil, which, once gone, / will, like death, at last, democratize / us all?”

“I did not choose her eyes. Did not / choose to masticate the ash of witness, / her crooked smile disclosing a swarm of flies…”

“There’s no geometry to language, but in America, / alien / borders me and everyone and I love.”

“This is how it is about us: / you flee into metaphor but you return / with another moth / flapping inside your throat.”

“How unaware / that yearning would be / the only currency that awaited / us, out there, in the arboretum / of this language / that was, exactly / like the glacial loneliness / of childhood, never-ending, / feral, the only house we’d ever own.”

“And the living did / what they do: they tasked / themselves with the cruelty of song, with braiding / questions they don’t have / the stomach to hear answers to.”

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. The long poems/sequences are really great. Loved the way this book built up across the reading experience.

[Josephine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you, Vibha!

Azalea, Azalea / Dream with Horse / Can you describe your years in prison?

[Cardenio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutal y hermoso.

[Ivy Rockmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the most incredible poetry collection I’ve ever read. I devoured this. Aber is so talented and I cannot wait to read her debut novel!

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely brilliant. I will reread it again and again.

[Carly Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Already one of my favorite collections of 2020, and perhaps one of my favorite debuts of all time. Aria Aber's poetry reminded me of the magic of language--how we can subvert syntax and look at language as tactile and fluid all at once.

[ocelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

talk to me about Home

[Alycia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is an astounding debut - Aria Aber writes in a seamless style that makes surprising and momentous lyrical moves feel effortless. I loved the journey I went on while reading this book. Every poem in this collection is my favourite poem.

[Caroliena Cabada · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It is a terrible time / to be alive. // I say this with the privilege / of being alive."

A stunning collection, both in the beautiful sense and in the immobilized sense. I am in awe of Aber's ability to speak plainly about hurt and small comforts.

[carolina · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Terrence Mifsud · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cannot put into words how good this book is! A must-read!!!!

[danny liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely stunningly gorgeous, aria aber shocks at every line, grips every single tendon in ur body, wish I could forget so I could read it again for the first time

[Sandra Del Rio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my mother

[Chris Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

Vampires
Assemble
On the other side of daylight
To die again
Paradise, ruthlessly, all around us.

#poem

Chris Roberts, Patron Saint to the Vertigo People

[Sarkis Antonyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

it got better and better and better. this is poetry

[Teymour · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine book, however, it’s evident the author doesn’t have a clear grasp of Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit. Therefore, more educated readers may find the book tiring

[Aumaine Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lush, studied, often gorgeous. Interesting turns of phrase and use of research/documentarian poetics

[Melissa Seitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning. Brilliant.

[George Abraham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is nothing short of groundbreaking, and is one of my favorites of 2019. Every poem will leave you breathless (and just wait till you get to the abecedarian - you're not ready). Aria Aber has given us the future of SWANA lit.

[Barton Smock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of hermetic departure and homeless echo, Aria Aber’s Hard Damage is a work of deep citizenry in which words begin to sound like the words they were made for. Or from. I’m not sure. One moment I’m packing snowglobes in ash and the next I’m losing my footing while listening to a eulogy that distance has written for want. What landmark nostalgia. What shocked intimacy. Aber knows speech hides in the saying. Knows headline is a melancholy click twice removed from identity sorrow. There is no undoing in the doing. Revelation, here, is baked into the bone. If Aber’s imagery renders hypnosis a given, then this language has it go without. Be taken, reader. So covertly enspelled.

[n · Rating 5 out of 5]

constantly thinking about rilke & i. constantly.

[Sanjay Varma]

At this moment in literary history, readers eagerly seek memoirs and immigrant stories. (The poet has a German and Afghani background.)There is also a newer trend of choosing an old poet to be one’s inspiration, and writing a poem sequence to investigate the relationship. (She presents Rainier Maria Rilke as her muse.) Such books satisfy reader expectations: italicized foreign words, trauma, assimilation, very superficial geopolitical analysis, sprinkles of pidgin dialect, and juxtapositions between the West and the ancestral homeland. These poems check all the boxes, and I found them to be standard for this genre.

[Kiril · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new favorite poet!

[F · Rating 5 out of 5]

she's a literal genius. probably one of the best poetry books i've ever read