Thank you to Netgalley and Columbia University Press for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Songs of an Eastern Humanist is a short poetry collection written by Edward Said. The Palestinian-American author is mainly known for his work as an academic, most notably his book Orientalism which is very crucial to post-colonial studies. I admit I had never read Said before, although he was mentioned during an Arab literature class I was taking a few years ago.

The introduction was much appreciated for context of course and to get an idea of what Said’s perspective and understanding of poetry was. Unfortunately, I found myself having a hard time to be receptive to his poems. It felt more like an exercise, trying his hand at poetry rather than a poet’s mastercraft, which is understanble too as it was not his main genre. Some lines were pretty and the musical imagery was quite interesting but this also showed a somewhat disparate work. I appreciated the poem “The top of my heart flung its doors apart” (p.49), in particular the first stanza but that’s about it.

I think this is an interesting project to be published as the reader learns something new about Edward Said: that he wrote a little bit of poetry too. Everyone may respond differently to poetry.