HOMES

by Moheb Soliman

Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, HOMES . Moheb Soliman traces the coast of the Great Lakes with postmodern poems, exploring the natural world, the experience of belonging, and the formation of identity along borders. Moheb Soliman’s HOMES maps the shoreline of the Great Lakes from the rocky North Shore of Minnesota to the Thousand Islands of eastern Ontario. This poetic travelogue offers an intimate perspective on an immigrant experience as Soliman drives his Corolla past exquisite vistas and abandoned mines, through tourist towns and midwestern suburbs, seeking to inhabit an entire region as home. Against the backdrop of environmental destruction and a history of colonial oppression, the vitality of Soliman’s language brings a bold ecopoetic lens to bear on the relationship between transience and belonging in the world’s largest, most porous borderland.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

Published June 8, 2021

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

These poems were just so rambling and sort of incohesive to me. The author seems to have a lot to say about immigrants, human intrusion on nature and conservation. The poems just didn’t grab me.

[Augie · Rating 4 out of 5]

So special to read this book during my first Midwest summer :’) “It doesn’t get any better than this/there’s more/of the same/And who could want more”

[Jess Witkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of meeting Moheb Soliman for a poetry writing workshop, and he is a gem of a human. We had the best discussion and deep dive into nature poetry and climate change and ecopoetry examples. He is very thoughtful about the shape of his poems and the style choices and I found them all very interesting.

If you can hear him read in person, or attend a workshop with him, GO!

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a portrait of a roadtrip and environmental degradation mixed with colonialism and questions of belonging. There are themes and questions about leisure, invasive species, immigrants, and always, land. There is a critical eye on whiteness in the Midwest, small towns, road stops, etc. The language is observational, detailed, and intimate with nature, while being hyperaware of human's role in suffering in each other's lives and the lives of other plants, animals, even lakes. The use of a prose block looking structure with internal line breaks was really working here, I don't know why it was so suiting, in a way good art is, it just was!

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the plus side, having lived near one of the Great Lakes most of my life, some of the poems really capture the feel of the little towns, state parks, and tourist attractions along the lakes. It was interesting to see these places through the author's eyes and experience them in a different light. For me, that was the best part of the book. On the negative side, many of the poems were too disjointed for me to really follow along and pick up the message. I tend to prefer poems that I can understand, but even after puzzling over them, many times I just couldn't. That made it difficult to stay motivated and a marathon to get to the end.

[joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moheb came to talk to my literature class and WOW! he had such wonderful and insightful things to say about his poetry, nature, writing as but not limited to an Arab American poet, and the Midwest. hearing him read his poetry out loud was so fun and definitely made me connect more with his work. any little environmental studies girlies or midwesterners or anybody who likes poetry will find this book so fascinating and beautiful. not only is the subject matter lovely, the use of form to convey ideas and themes is so unique and makes for such a fun reading experience. so grateful to Moheb for granting my class with his presence and for taking time to connect with us!! 🫶

[Aisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars - I know it's well written and at times it really resonated with me, but maybe it's the postmodern poetry formatting or the lake of familiarity with the region it focuses on (Great Lakes) but I really struggled to get through this collection. It just required some more focus than I had and much more knowledge of the area that I had. Not my favorite and not my least favorite.

This work fulfills SPL's summer book bingo prompt - "Recommended by a local bookseller". Technically finished a teensy bit beyond the deadline, but it's been a wild year/summer so...🤷🏻‍♀️

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Congrats to Soliman on a Heartland Bookseller award nomination! Such beautiful poems of place--I absolutely love the titling method. It settles them in specificity and provides the reader an aerial view for the rest of the poem. Big fan of this book alongside Beth Roberts' Like You (and again, I'm real biased when it comes to that book, but these are both such good Great Lakes poetry reads). Basically, this book is just all-around excellent. Loved it.

[Soraya Keiser · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I would have liked this even less if I wasn’t in love with the Great Lakes. Without the personal connection of seeing Milwaukee, Lake Michigan, Porcupine Mountains State Park or other places I love written on the page, I think it would’ve been quite boring. This was in the form of more modern poetry, so I didn’t always understand the weird gaps between phrases. I think my problem is that I tend to devour words, but poetry is meant to be eaten and digested slowly.

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Homes a reader gets to follow Moheb Soliman around the Great Lakes through songs, prose poems, couplets, free verse full of wordplay, inner rhymes, (sardonic) irony. Anti-picturesque and layered, a multifaceted, vivid geography that redefines and explores place and being in it with an unsparing eye unfolds--critical in all the senses and wonderfully inspiring. I loved to be in it.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately these poems weren't for me. Often delving into the obscurely personal without enough narrative context to follow, and when they were focused on the geography of the Great Lakes, often it was just lists of names of places.

[Josh Berthume · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting style, vivid imagery, and a cool story. This book of poetry made me want to emulate the author’s travels.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having lived in four of the Great Lakes states helped ground this collection for me. Reading it is a bit like being out on one of the lakes with a storm on the horizon.