some kind book blurbs
"Hassen Saker is at the eye of the storm for a new generation, lyric & personal & analytic & tough, committed to no medium but the truth."
–Ron Silliman
"...Saker carefully dismantles sublimity’s power over language. "
–Jean Day
The dilemma Sky Journal poses is what to do with these precise evocative poems. I put an excerpt on my teacup “…some things require sustained perception”; on my window “degrees of horizon slither past”; to accompany my plants in the corner “slow going mess through fall in leaf bed to oh where i left off love blinks fifteen years”; and two places on my ceiling to catch the occasional “look skyward”. Re-encounter, immerse, savor and …. read them, yes but I suggest u do something with these fierce beautiful poems too.
–Natalie Jeremijenko
"I like how, in the poetry hassen writes, the writer largely disappears into words in motion, and the motions seem fresh with currents, breezes and eddies. something very tender survives that disappearance, tender and brave. hassen's poetry touches warmly, gives, hints, engages and stays grounded. it mediates and meditates with a resource of delight and integrity. I definitely like and admire this poetry."
~ Allen Bramhall
"…Listeners, please welcome the intensely focused fluid energy and three dimensional perspicacious magnifying glass that is hassen."
–Nada Gordon
Books
Sky Journal from Dusie Press
Salem - from Belladonna* Chapbook Series
Consolation Snacks from Furniture Press
Sky Journal is a book of poems about transformation;
a decade of scopes & firmament & visceral origami. Read more about it here.
"The sky is like a poem is like the body in that all three are composed – what we experience as “inevitable” or (worse) “natural” – limitless blue expanse, for example – might only be a membrane that enables us to scrabble about on this fragile orb at the edge of nowhere. The page is no less silent, smooth or matte surface over which to cast our dreams, our fears. Hassen Saker is at the eye of the storm for a new generation, lyric & personal & analytic & tough, committed to no medium but the truth. This is a book of wands.” - Ron Silliman
Consolation Snacks from Furniture Press
Salem - from Belladonna* Chapbook Series
Consolation Snacks from Furniture Press
Hassen Saker invented a new poetic form she calls 'crabapples'. Named thusly because they're bite-sized, bitter, and they might sting a little when thrown at you. These consists of a title and one line, creating a poem that serves as an epigrammatic call-and-response. This book is a collection of about 150 of them.
"At roughly 150 pages, this pocket-size guidebook of language's intricate associations spans philosophy, economics, art, culture, domestic life, music, film, stupid people and pets, composed on the fly between day jobs and life's responsibilities." - Furniture Press
A single but mighty blurb from the late epigrammatist and cartoonist (Pot-Shots), Ashleigh Brilliant, adorns the back:
"This is clever meaningful wordplay in the purest sense."
Salem - from Belladonna* Chapbook Series
Salem - from Belladonna* Chapbook Series
Salem - from Belladonna* Chapbook Series
Salem began as an investigation into the phenomena of false confessions, or false guilt, that vulnerable people often experience in a domination culture where the dead, fearful mind succumbs to the irrational. This poetry project is also its own kind of judgment.
From Nick Piombinoo’s Blog 10/31/2004 regarding Hassen's Salem poetry reading the day prior at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC :
"Hassen-
introduced by Nada Gordon by means of some quite wittily
employed physics texts very recently cribbed from the
WWW, set the stage for the Holloween festivities by evoking
narrratives from the Salem witch trials, with a sardonically satiric
and mysteriously charismatic reading style rife
with rich contemporary political implications-
presented us also with some timely political either/ors that
offered some apt comic relief from the unbearably
suspenseful tensions building up as we approach political ground zero
on November 2cd.”