Love Language by Nasser Hussain

In his follow-up to SKY WRI TEI NGS, Nasser Hussain tackles the
absurdity of the English language through a modern take love poems.
The term “Love Language” can be read at least three ways: as an imperative,
as the signoff to a letter, and as a contemporary way of talking about relationship styles. None of these would be wrong in this book.
In his followup to the acclaimed SKY WRI TEI NGS, written entirely in
airport codes, Nasser Hussain moves toward a more expansive version of
experimentation; in a time of physical lockdown, his pandemic poetics refuse
to be confined. And so we have poems that repeat and hypnotize as English
becomes more and more absurd, that compare an affair to a relationship
with Apple, that list love poems the poet loves.
But most of all, we see a deep affection for language: its multiple meanings,
the ways it makes us feel, and for the ways that language lets us talk about
complicated things playfully, like love. Generously handing out tenderness
like a child with a sack full of Valentine’s Day cards, the poems of Love
Language revel in love’s warm glow and make sure there’s enough room for
anyone to join.
‘Think of “time as a lantern,” suggests Nasser Hussain, in these inimitable
poems that take play seriously and allow seriousness to enter the room
disguised as incantation. These are poems that long to dismiss the lyric’s
most recent pretty mask of polite propriety and instead take us to the lyric’s
ancient roots. It started way back, the poet says, “when a cave person made a
grunt,” to speak the name of a thing. Indeed. This is the lyric’s ancient pact
with the world: to spin playful language into seriousness of giving things
their names – what are we without this speaking, this tune? Hussain knows
this and writes beautiful poems – and I, for one, am grateful.’
– Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic

Nasser Hussain is a Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at Leeds Beckett
University in the UK. His first book, boldface was published in 2014. He holds a
PhD in English from the University of York (UK), an MA in Creative Writing
from the University of Windsor and a BA in English from Queen’s University.
Nasser has had a number of occupations: treeplanter, wilderness guide, amateur
restaurateur, and now academic and poet. He likes his new job best. He currently
lives in Sheffield, UK. 

ISBN 978 1 55245 471 8
5 x 8, 80 pp | pbk
$22.95 CDN | $17.95 US
POE005020 POETRY /
European / English, Irish,
Scottish, Welsh
EPUB 978 1 77056 778 8