{"product_id":"dothead-isbn-9781101947098","title":"Dothead","description":"\u003cb\u003eA captivating, no-holds-barred collection of new poems from an acclaimed poet and novelist with a fierce and original voice\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eDothead\u003c\/i\u003e is an exploration of selfhood both intense and exhilarating. Within the first pages, Amit Majmudar asserts the claims of both the self and the other: the title poem shows us the place of an Indian American teenager in the bland surround of a mostly white peer group, partaking of imagery from the poet’s Hindu tradition; the very next poem is a fanciful autobiography, relying for its imagery on the religious tradition of Islam. From poems about the treatment at the airport of people who look like Majmudar (“my dark unshaven brothers \/ whose names overlap with the crazies and God fiends”) to a long, freewheeling abecedarian poem about Adam and Eve and the discovery of oral sex, \u003ci\u003eDothead\u003c\/i\u003e is a profoundly satisfying cultural critique and a thrilling experiment in language. United across a wide range of tones and forms, the poems inhabit and explode multiple perspectives, finding beauty in every one.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Supurb….inventive, playful….Majmudar finds poetry in the modern world where we least expect it.”—\u003ci\u003eBookpage \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e“Especially perceptive about manhood and its meanings…\u003ci\u003eDothead\u003c\/i\u003e is charming and urgent in equal measure.”  \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eDwight Garner, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003elisted DOTHEAD as one of their Spring poetry picks of 2016 for \"pointedly offering commentary on those who aren't always at home in America.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eDothead\u003c\/i\u003e amounts to nothing less than a torrent of poetic inventiveness driven by the inexhaustible poetic energy of Amit Majmudar. His delight in deploying his formal skills combines remarkably with his wide range of interests to produce a collection of poetry both riveting and enviable. Drones, torture, immigration, weaponry, James Bond, King Lear, medical practice, Hinduism, and the sex life of Adam and Eve are but a few of the subjects treated here without any sacrifice of lyric texture or pulse.  Majmudar stands out clearly and forcefully in the overpopulated tableau of contemporary American poetry.”\u003cb\u003e—Billy Collins\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “Readers new to Amit Majmudar’s work will rejoice to find themselves in the company of a writer who clearly believes no poem can enlighten unless it first entertains. We are invariably surprised—by Kafkaesque fable or Borgesian paradox, by fluently rhymed verse, a calligramme, or some outrageous form of his own invention. However Majmudar has Hardy’s knack of finding forms well suited to his subject, these wise, timely meditations on race, sex, language and identity leave us thinking about nothing more than the radical ideas they propose. All serve Majmudar’s larger project—to reflect the uncomfortable complexity of the human animal. He has no hesitation in juxtaposing the serious and the grave, the base and the transcendent, and those acts of gentleness and brutality which define us; but his ability to turn on a dime will often have the reader laughing or shivering before he has a chance to prepare his defences. Majmudar has allied an old-fashioned talent to a real experimental boldness, but perhaps the most startling aspect of his work is its unapologetic assumption of poetry’s intrinsic cultural value. One has the sense that every line simply believes in itself. The result is a various, wakeful, urgent poetry that asks to be read now.”\u003cb\u003e—Don Paterson\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAMIT MAJMUDAR\u003c\/b\u003e is a diagnostic nuclear radiologist who lives in Dublin, Ohio, with his wife and three children. His poetry and prose have appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Best American Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e (2007, 2012), \u003ci\u003eThe Best of the Best American Poetry 1988–2012,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003ePoetry, Poetry Daily, \u003c\/i\u003eand several other venues, including the eleventh edition of \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eNorton Introduction to Literature.\u003c\/i\u003e His first poetry collection,\u003ci\u003e 0º, 0º\u003c\/i\u003e, was a finalist for the 2009 Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. His second poetry collection, \u003ci\u003eHeaven and Earth,\u003c\/i\u003e won the 2011 Donald Justice Prize. The first poet laureate for the state of Ohio, Majmudar blogs for the \u003ci\u003eKenyon Review \u003c\/i\u003eand is also a critically acclaimed novelist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewww.amitmajmudar.com\u003cb\u003eDothead\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Well yes, I said, my mother wears a dot. \u003cbr\u003e I know they said “third eye” in class, but it’s not \u003cbr\u003e an \u003ci\u003eeye \u003c\/i\u003eeye, not like that. It’s not some freak \u003cbr\u003e third eye that opens on your forehead like \u003cbr\u003e on some Chernobyl baby. What it means \u003cbr\u003e is, what it’s \u003ci\u003eshowing \u003c\/i\u003eis, there’s this unseen \u003cbr\u003e eye, on the inside. And she’s marking it. \u003cbr\u003e It’s how the X that says where treasure’s at \u003cbr\u003e is not the treasure, but as good as treasure.—\u003cbr\u003e All right. What I said wasn’t half so measured. \u003cbr\u003e In fact, I didn’t say a thing. Their laughter \u003cbr\u003e had made my mouth go dry. Lunch was after \u003cbr\u003e World History; that week was India—myths, \u003cbr\u003e caste system, suttee, all the Greatest Hits. \u003cbr\u003e The white kids I was sitting with were friends, \u003cbr\u003e at least as I defined a friend back then. \u003cbr\u003e So wait, said Nick, does \u003ci\u003eyour \u003c\/i\u003emom wear a dot? \u003cbr\u003e I nodded, and I caught a smirk on Todd—\u003cbr\u003e She wear it to the shower? And to bed?—\u003cbr\u003e while Jesse sucked his chocolate milk and Brad \u003cbr\u003e was getting ready for another stab. \u003cbr\u003e I said, Hand me that ketchup packet there. \u003cbr\u003e And Nick said, What? I snatched it, twitched the tear, \u003cbr\u003e and squeezed a dollop on my thumb and worked \u003cbr\u003e circles till the red planet entered the house of war \u003cbr\u003e and on my forehead for the world to see \u003cbr\u003e my third eye burned those schoolboys in their seats, \u003cbr\u003e their flesh in little puddles underneath, \u003cbr\u003e pale pools where Nataraja cooled his feet.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e Ode to a Drone\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Hell-raiser, razor-feathered \u003cbr\u003e riser, windhover over \u003cbr\u003e Peshawar,\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e power’s\u003cbr\u003e joystick-blithe \u003cbr\u003e thousand-mile scythe,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e proxy executioner’s \u003cbr\u003e proxy ax \u003cbr\u003e pinged by a proxy server,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e winged victory, \u003cbr\u003e pilot cipher \u003cbr\u003e unburdened by aught\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e but fuel and bombs, \u003cbr\u003e fool of God, savage \u003cbr\u003e idiot savant\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e sucking your benumbed\u003cbr\u003e trigger-finger\u003cbr\u003e gamer’s thumb\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e His Love of Semicolons\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The comma is comely, the period, peerless, \u003cbr\u003e but stack them one atop \u003cbr\u003e the other, and I am in love; what I love \u003cbr\u003e is the end that refuses to stop, \u003cbr\u003e the promise that something will come in a moment \u003cbr\u003e though the saying seem all said; \u003cbr\u003e a grammatical afterlife, fullness that spills \u003cbr\u003e past the full stop, not so much dead \u003cbr\u003e as taking a breather, at worst, stunned; \u003cbr\u003e the sentence regroups and restarts, \u003cbr\u003e its notation bespeaking momentum, its silence \u003cbr\u003e dividing the beats of a heart;","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303332761829,"sku":"NP9781101947098","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781101947098.jpg?v=1767725561","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/dothead-isbn-9781101947098","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}