Mare Nostrum by Khaled Mattawa
Sarabande Books, 2019
A Libyan poet and creative writing professor at the University of Michigan, Khaled Mattawa often writes about the intersection between culture, memory, and narrative. Published by Sarabande Books as part of the Quarternote Chapbook Series, Mare Nostrum focuses on refugee immigration from Africa and Western Asia into Europe. “Mare nostrum” means “our sea,” and the title functions as an act of reclamation, or at least as a plea from refugee voices to say, This water belongs to all of us as human beings. Even the waves on the cover resemble the human thumbprint, something that connects us all.
Mare Nostrum includes a refrain of nine “Psalms.” The first and last poems, “Psalm of Departure” and “Psalm of the Departed,” frame a journey experienced by refugees and reimagined by readers. The chapbook also includes three “Songs,” and one “Blues,” continuing the musical motif. All of these poems sing to each other. A related spiritual dimension to Mattawa’s chapbook manifests in the form of questions, as in “Psalm of the Volunteer.” The repetition of “Dear [X], / who am I” without question marks turns the words into an open prayer.
Mattawa’s consistency in form, both structurally and culturally, balances the frequent reconsiderations readers must make. For one, every poem is written in tercets. Formally, three line stanzas pull the reader down the page more quickly than couplets or quatrains, creating a feeling of being off-balanced or uneasy. This certainly speaks to the journey—over land and water—that Mare Nostrum is detailing. Even the stanzas in “’Allams for Robert Hayden” are all three lines, although they are organized in a 3×5 grid. This poem feels the most structurally unique in the chapbook, and not just because of the rows and columns; this poem also includes a footnote to define ‘allams. Mattawa rarely offers readers information so easily. One braid of poems, “Malouk’s Ode,” “Malouk’s Qassida,” and “Qassida to the Statue of Sappho in Mytelini,” particularly lean on Arabic tradition. A qassida is “a laudatory, elegiac, or satiric poem in Arabic, Persian, or any of various related literatures,” according to Merriam-Webster. The form is often translated as “ode,” which interestingly makes a pair of same-titled poems across languages.
While only 36 pages, Mare Nostrum makes me reflect on who I am as a reader. I wouldn’t want Mattawa to make this book specifically accessible for me or the groups I represent. The journeying and circling nature of the chapbook is compelling. Each poem feeds into the others like the tide—a constant churning and re-churning, receding and swelling of details. Mare Nostrum is an example of using the oppressor’s language against them, and readers are, in the best way, forced to confront themselves as they traverse these pages. “Malouk’s Qassida” rightfully asks us, “Who is saving whom?”
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Livia Meneghin is a current M.F.A. candidate and writing studies instructor at Emerson College. She also teaches poetry with EmersonWRITES. Her individual poems have been published by So to Speak, tenderness lit, The Rockvale Review, CALYX Journal, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook Honey in My Hair.