01
Constraint Is Not the Enemy of Meaning
I believed for thirty one years that a censor was holding my sentences small. Leaving Iran removed him and my writing got worse for two years, not better.
The Reading Room
What the room is reading this week. Long-form work by people who write for a living and people who write to stay sane.
02
The Difference Between Subtlety and Cowardice
A colleague once complimented my most cowardly poem for being lovely. I did not correct him, because the poem's ambiguity was built to protect me, not to accuse anyone.
03
Exile Rewrites Your Tense
An editor circled my mother's kitchen, written in present tense nine years after she moved out. I found the same tense error eighty times, and it was not a mistake.
04
The Political Poem Fails When It Explains Itself
I added a couplet naming the prison, the year, and the law to a poem an editor worried was too subtle. It sold more copies. I still think it was the worst thing I ever published.