9th Ave: Rooja Mohassessy

Friday, February 3, 2023 - 7:00pm

Cover of Rooja Mohassessy's When Your Sky Runs Into Mine. The cover is a still life painting of flowers in a thin vase. The flowers, vase, and wall behind them are varying shades of blue.
Join us on Friday, February 3 at 7pm PT when Rooja Mohassessy celebrates her collection, When Your Sky Runs Into Mine, at 9th Ave!

Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online at the link below
https://youtu.be/l7PaUIy1zOo

 

Praise for When Your Sky Runs Into Mine
"When Your Sky Runs Into Mine is a stunning debut collection. Set against childhood in the post-revolutionary Iran of the 1980s and coming of age as an American immigrant, the poems are an intricate ekphrastic dance where the poet embodies the roles of women, and decides, “It’s time to come to terms / with the dark” ––the dark of the chador, the dark of the hijab, of blackouts during bombing, of immigrant guilt for family left behind. This collection is also about personal revolution, the turning toward art in times of suffering, the claiming of a rich cultural heritage."—Ellen Bass author of Indigo

"Mohassessy’s intellectual power and penchant for image stand out in beautiful ways in this debut collection. She displays a painterly use of color, texture, and image that reflects her striking awareness of the physical world.  Her capacity for efficient and elegant syntax and her fierce intelligence when dealing with political subjects and subjects of the female body in this world, constitute a most welcome addition to American poetry.  This is a very impressive debut collection by a most promising poet.”—Kwame Dawes

About When Your Sky Runs Into Mine
WHEN YOUR SKY RUNS INTO MINE by Rooja Mohassessy is the winner of the 22nd Annual Elixir Press Poetry Award. Shara McCallum had this to say about it: “Rooja Mohassessy's debut collection, WHEN YOUR SKY RUNS INTO MINE, belies any notion of a first book. It is a work of expansive vision and formal achievement, sounding an assured and unforgettable voice in poetry. Ekphrasis is at the core of Mohassessy's poetics, resplendent in her responses to works of visual art and in the richly textured images she creates with intricate diction and syntax.”

About Rooja Mohassessy
Rooja Mohassessy
is an Iranian-born poet. She is a 2022 MacDowell Fellow and a student of the Pacific University MFA program in Oregon. Her debut collection, WHEN YOUR SKY RUNS INTO MINE, was the winner of the 22nd Annual Elixir Poetry Prize. Her poems and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Narrative Magazine, Poet Lore, RHINO Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, CALYX Journal, Ninth Letter, Cream City Review, The Adroit Journal, New Letters, The Florida Review, and elsewhere.

When Your Sky Runs Into Mine By Rooja Mohassessy Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781932418811
Availability: Click the TITLE to view store availability
Published: Elixir Press - February 1st, 2023

Winner of the 23rd Annual Elixir Press Poetry Award.


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