by Nicole Yurcaba
In Issam Zineh’s Unceded Land, displacement becomes a key theme in many of the poems. That displacement, however, is not only physical displacement. It consists of the intellectual, the historical, and the emotional displacement one experiences as the brutal and the beautiful clash within one’s existence. The poems in this collection investigate the slippages in language and survival which leave one exposed and vulnerable.
Initially, one of the most powerful poems is “Catastrophic Sonnet,” a deceptive poem considering it is not a sonnet. However, in the case of this poem, form and structure are not the poem’s appeal. The opening line, with its allusion to the 1948 Palestine War, blends the personal with the historical. The war was fought in the territory of British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. The speaker states, “My grandfather still has his house key from 1948.” Displacement is a key theme in the poem, because the grandfather lives “in the part of the village where the past doesn’t kill you.” The war displaced around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs, and conflict and high tensions continue in the area to this day. However, the poem also alludes imperialism’s legacy and, ultimately, inescapability for many cultures. The speaker admits, “My kids fell in love with imperialism last summer in / London. They discovered legacy in the gardens.” Here, the speaker provides subtle commentary about the British Empire’s residue which continues tainting many modern societies into the present.
Divorce is another key subtheme in the context of the collection’s discussion regarding the various states of displacement. “What If a Love Like This” is an intimate, multi-sectioned, first-person poem. It is deceitfully simple–at first: “I caught a starfish, second summer after my divorce.” Emotional displacement forms as the speaker transitions from the first-person point-of-view to the second: “You know it’s your fault you / were once again standing off in the dark.” This instance of displacement, this subtle shift of blame from one individual to another, is the section’s only moment of transference. From there, the speaker returns to spaces of self-reflection in which the first-person point-of-view dominates. The poem contains powerful lines of self-recognition that allude, but do not directly state, the speaker’s fault in the relationship’s failure: “I see myself thrown heart first into this ruin.” In another section, ruin becomes the authoritative factor. Dramatic lines such as “Without you this city is a pale rude fiction” and “Will you pay to hear my angst of sob and bathe in it?” again transfer blame and shame, and the speaker’s usage of “you” swirls readers into the speaker’s emotional torment.
“Plastic Bag” is a poem as eloquent as it is brief. A compact poem of 10 lines, it is a poem of recovery, of individual reclamation from the past’s traumas and hurt. It uses common language like “sleep like a baby” and “wrap me in your arms” to carry abstruse messages about the peace and content one finds when one reconciles with the past. Other compelling images, like the “news of a child in a plastic / bag” provide a ruthless, almost callous, balance, reminding readers that, after all, reality has a way of slicing peace and happiness to bits.
Essentially, such a theme continues in “Parable to Keep You Safe, Defy Aging, & Banish Evil: Koi Death.” In this poem, “A child sees their first koi,” and from there the wonderment of growth and development unfold. The poem draws on age-old cliches such as “big fish in small ponds, small fish in big ponds” to make a point about “A certain recyclable truth” regarding life. It is also a poem in which innocence is an easily slaughtered creature: “A kid points to their favorite koi in a restaurant known for its / unusual dinners.” The lines ooze a crafty kind of nihilism, and for a few readers, might even cause a smirk.
Like James Davis May’s Unusually Grand Ideas, Zineh’s Unceded Land possesses an awareness about the internal dark places few are willing to explore, let alone circumvent and map. The speaker exposes not only history and displacement’s flesh, but also their own, as they pursue a seemingly unreachable truth pursued by many. These poems possess the capacity to break, re-break, and reshape readers in innumerable ways–ultimately for the better.
Nicole Yurcaba (Ukrainian: Нікола Юрцаба–Nikola Yurtsaba) is a Ukrainian (Hutsul/Lemko) American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, West Trade Review, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University and is a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and The Southern Review of Books.
