Lucas’s Reviews > The Lost Arabs > Status Update

Was it ever meant to be? Could it ever be? It is human, so human, to leave, as Sakr observes. But it also so human to return, as I believe he is getting at.

In his acknowledgments, “Lead with kindness, or not at all,” rings with an inherent severity, a necessity that will never be read by the eyes that lack.

Nor is faith constant at a macro-historic level. The Church. Its history, its changes, its differing philosophies, how it’s split, and then split again, and split again, and now again and again and again and everyone lambasting everyone as heretical… No, faith is not a constant.

“In Order to Return” on page 95, the line

It would not be faith
Were it constant.

Very intriguing and interesting to me. A lot to think about there, a lot it drums up. Immediately I think of course faith is constant, but no, no it is not. Not in individuals. We waver. We doubt. We forsake. We curse. Sometimes, we leave, never to return.

Does it warm you? Does it envelop you? Or does it burn you? Does it burn away impurities eternally and engulf you in agony? There are no gates, all are welcome. All will be. All of us infinite, yet a morning fog decides our infinity.

Heaven Is a Bad Name on page 93, rife with self-awareness and intrepid thought, makes me wonder and think more about the Greek Orthodox idea that Heaven and “Hell” are the same place, the same plane. Everyone goes. It is only how your soul responds to the Light of God shining upon it.

my people, and his people, and our family as human beings. Sakr shines a light on how broken we can be to each other, and in the process, how broken we can become, and how we embrace it, as he does.

I will forever be glad I read this collection, chewed on the poems. They very much evoke, and they certainly provoke. I will return and chew, spur, churn some more.

In the ways my virgin eyes sense this to be provocative, it is not. It is painful, yes. Broken, yes. Sinful, yes. But it is real. It is human. It is authentic. A window into a soul into a universe into a man, and into again. Disgusting? To some. Familiar? To others. Beautiful? To others yet. I see it as a life yearning, colored by brokenness, brokenness through generations. Generations of brokenness sponsored by

I would say this collection is provocative, but it is not, or at least, it is not, meant to be in the ways that my psyche considers provocative. It is most certainly meant to provoke, as strong poetry should — not all poetry should merely evoke, much should provoke — but it is meant to provoke to prompt thought. It is meant to provoke to poke holes in the lies of peace we find in our world. Sakr achieves that.

The more I write poetry, the more I understand how difficult it is to do what Sakr does here. Brilliant baring of a soul in these pages.

Interesting batch of poems. Beautiful yet crude. Awe-inspiring yet harrowing. Some are not “for me” but they are not meant to be which is precisely why they are “for me.”