A Dress of Locusts

Composed with bold, economical precision, Khatib’s debut comprises a blend of dream, riddle, parable, and prophecy. The book’s title is spoken by Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war. This is, incredibly, an apt punctum for the book’s meditations on desire, faith, and ancient continuities between the so-called “West” and “(Middle) East”. Khatib’s wildly ambitious imagination collapses those divisions and defies contemporary geopolitical premises. The book’s idiosyncratic spirituality and vision are matched by its delightful, playful earthiness. Essential reading -- DAVE COATES * Poetry Book Society (Summer Bulletin) *
I am spellbound by these poems, their heartfelt percussion, their clean slice of precision. Safa Khatib’s poems open my eyes, sharpen my ears. Here is a poet I will read in every eternity -- SAFIA ELHILLO, author of Girls That Never Die
A Dress of Locusts suggests that memory can be ephemeral and speech an effort not quite realized. And yet, for Khatib, these realities are no excuse. Without admonishment, but with a meditative clarity, Khatib calls us to account for the ways we have – and continue to – turn eyes away from the historic now -- NIKI HERD, author of The Stuff of Hollywood
Safa Khatib’s poems take us everywhere and nowhere. They take us to the river and bring us back thirsty. They are suspended in the in-between – in the pockets of the body, in late visits to the ruins, in the phone calls demanding a life together. Khatib does not shy away from Empire by hiding in the interior, she blurs both topographies into one -- MONA KAREEM, author of I Will Not Fold These Maps