Name: Abacus of Loss: A Memoir in Verse
Author: Wolpé, Sholeh
ISBN: 9781682261989

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Abacus of Loss: A Memoir in Verse

by Sholeh Wolpé

University of Arkansas Press, 2022
eISBN: 978-1-61075-765-2 | Paper: 978-1-68226-198-9
Library of Congress Classification PS3623.O5935A23 2022
Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” It is in this vein that Sholeh Wolpé’s mesmerizing memoir in verse unfolds. In this lyrical and candid work, her fifth collection of poems, Wolpé invokes the abacus as an instrument of remembering. Through different countries and cultures, she carries us bead by bead on a journey of loss and triumph, love and exile. In the end, the tally is insight, not numbers, and we arrive at a place where nothing is too small for gratitude.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian American poet, translator, playwright. She is the award-winning author or editor of more than a dozen books, including Keeping Time with Blue Hyacinths, Sin:Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad,and The Conference of the Birds. Currently a writer-in-residence at the University of California, Irvine, Wolpé has lived in Iran, Trinidad, and the United Kingdom. She presently resides in Los Angeles and Barcelona.

REVIEWS

“’Exile is a suitcase with a broken strap,’ writes Sholeh Wolpé in this autobiographical story that takes us across borders of language and time, from ‘a hill high above Tehran’ to the valley in Los Angeles. It is a journey where—we soon learn—‘loss is a language’ and the ‘fastest way out of a labyrinth / is up.’ So much to love about this brave and musical storytelling. I for one admire how much Wolpé loves our days, how much tenderness and insight each moment’s turn offers. There is much gusto, too, and such style and verve. ‘Make my curly hair your flag,’ the poet tells us, as she guides us on the trip via ‘boats crusted with our stories.’ Abacus of Loss is a terrific book, thrilling with lyric as it casts a narrative spell. Bravo!”
—Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa

“The poet tallies her losses—loss of dear ones, loss of home and country, loss of language and faith. Yet, recollecting her life memory by memory, Sholeh Wolpé finds ways to love and to be thankful. She is truly a daughter of Rumi.”
—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

“Sholeh Wolpé’s Abacus of Loss is a manual for living. How to stay permeable to wonder and joy in a world that so aggressively conspires against them? In a world that can be so corrosive to grace? In one poem Wolpé writes, ‘Our passports lie on the yellow Formica table / side by side, two countries at war.’ In another, ‘God is just a vagabond / peddling bombs and swords.’ There is a remarkable braid here of a woman’s journey through a world run by men drunk on their own power, through a cosmos governed by a God apparently hidden by his. Abacus of Loss is a remarkable achievement, an unforgettable text.”
—Kaveh Akbar, author of Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Acknowledgments

Color of Loss

This Coffin

The World Grows Blackthorn Walls

Please Stop

(Un) Lovers

Pink

Faith

Honeymoon among Sargassum

Un-Blinking Eyes

The Tally

Notes

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