0°, 0°: Poems

by Amit Majmudar

0° , 0° is where the equator and prime meridian cross, but it is also, in Amit Majmudar’s poetic cartography, "the one True Cross, the rood’s wood warped and tacked / pole to pole." Unlikely intersections lie at the heart of Amit Majmudar's first collection of poetry. Mythical, biblical, political, and scientific allusion thrive side by side, inspiring surprise and wonder. Majmudar’s training as a medical doctor is clearly at work as he is able to balance poetic forms requiring surgical precision—including the exceedingly difficult ghazal —with warmth and compassion for the world. Majmudar understands suffering on the large scale and the small, whether he is speaking up for the biblical character Job and "answering the whirlwind," or tallying the human cost of war at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 2009

About the author

Amit Majmudar is the author of The Abundance, Partitions, chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best debut novels of 2011 and by Booklist as one of the year’s ten best works of historical fiction. His poetry has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Best American Poetry 2011. A radiologist, he lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Reviews

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My husband says Majmudar is his favorite living poet. I was originally interested in him because, like me, he was a physician and a poet. He's superb.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some beautiful poetic moments and lines. Lovely use of form. But, though I like, I don't go wow or feel my breath taken away. Sometimes the surreal, transcendent moments get pulled up short by self-conscious, narrative interjections. There is an academic control that makes me feel like wild poems are on a tight leash.