Stamford resident Rowyda Amin will share selections tomorrow
evening from her latest chapbook, Desert Sunflowers (Flipped Eye Press, 2014), praised by Lauri Ramey as “a study of migration and a negotiation between place… notions of
identity and self (and) so much more.” Previous appearances have included many events
in the UK, including the Ledbury Poetry Festival, the Brighton Festival and the
Royal Festival Hall.
Born in Newfoundland of Saudi Arabian and Irish parents,
Rowyda has lived in Riyadh and London before moving to Connecticut. She won first
prize in the 2012 Venture Award for poetry chapbooks from Flipped Eye.
Her work and reviews have run in Magma, Modern Poetry in Translation, Wasafiri (for which she was awarded their New Writing Prize in 2009) and other print and online magazines; anthology appearances include Ten (Bloodaxe Books 2010), Bird Book: Towns, Parks, Gardens and Woodland, (a 2011
Sidekick Books collection of poetry and illustration celebrating British birds), Lung Jazz: Young British Poets for Oxfam (Cinnamon Press, 2012) and Coin Opera (Sidekick, 2009)
and Exposure (Cinnamon Press, 2010).
Rowyda's deft and versatile approach is typified by elements of quiet
surprise and magic realism mixed with moments of emotional complexity to
illuminate matters of isolation and belonging, as reflected in this intimate
example from Coin Opera:
Café Danube
He stayed behind the
fridge until he was sure
there was no one left, then stepped through
the litter of glass and abandoned suppers
to the podium with the Yamaha synth.
He righted the stool and played, as he did
most evenings, the themes from Love Story,
Casablanca and Titanic. Rain squalled
through the empty door frames. A dog
entered, shook itself, licked the cream
from a fallen éclair and urinated on the leg
of a waiter, which was sticking out
from behind the bar. The pianist broke
for a whiskey then switched to show tunes.
Water pooled into the centre of the room.
He heard claps, far off but getting louder.
there was no one left, then stepped through
the litter of glass and abandoned suppers
to the podium with the Yamaha synth.
He righted the stool and played, as he did
most evenings, the themes from Love Story,
Casablanca and Titanic. Rain squalled
through the empty door frames. A dog
entered, shook itself, licked the cream
from a fallen éclair and urinated on the leg
of a waiter, which was sticking out
from behind the bar. The pianist broke
for a whiskey then switched to show tunes.
Water pooled into the centre of the room.
He heard claps, far off but getting louder.
“The Dwarf” performed by the late Geoffrey Lewis and
the storytelling group Celestial
Navigations strikes a consonant note with Rowyda’s themes that are of
special relevance in today’s highly-globalized society, where the received authority
of a few to define matters of social acceptance and human grace is too often
automatically reinforced by everyone else:
