Fugitive/Refuge

Dynamically pairing traditional and experimental forms, Philip Metres traces ancient and modern migrations in an investigation of the ever-shifting idea of home.

In Fugitive/Refuge, Philip Metres follows the journey of his refugee ancestorsfrom Lebanon to Mexico to the United Statesin a vivid exploration of what it means to long for home. A book-length qasida, the collection draws on both ancient traditions and innovative formsodes and arabics, sonnets and cut-ups, prayers and documentary voicings, heroic couplets and homophonic translationsin order to confront the perils of our age: forced migration, climate change, and toxic nationalism.

Fugitive/Refuge pronounces the urge both to remember the past and to forge new poetic forms and ways of being in language. In one section, Metres meditates on the Arabic greetingahlan wa sahlanand asks how older forms of welcome might offer generous and embodied ways of responding to the challenges of mass migration and digital alienation in postmodern societies. In another, he dialogues with Dante to inform new ways of understanding ancestral and modern migrations and the injustices that have burdened them. Ultimately, Metres uses movement to create a new placeone to home and dream infor all those who seek shelter.

Dettagli