Publisher's Synopsis
Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2017
A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry 2017
Claudia Rankine described the poems in Alsadir's first book as 'lawless,' 'provocative, and 'heartbreaking' as they 'converse from the inside out… come alive in the back and forth of a mind attempting to understand what it means to be in relation to.' Fourth Person Singular continues to blow open the relationship between self and world in a working through of lyric shame, bending poetic form through fragment, lyric essay, aphorisms mined from the unconscious, and pop-up associations, to explore the complexities, congruities, disturbances - as well as the beauty - involved in self-representation in language. As unexpected as it is bold, Alsadir's ambitious tour de force demands we pay new attention to the current conversation about the nature of lyric - and human relationships - in the 21st century.
