by Aaron Brown (Author)
Call Me Exile explores geographic, spiritual, and relational exile through poems that navigate child loss, divorce, and migration. The vivid imagery and descriptive language of these poems allows the reader to feel every emotion in a way that stays with you long after you put the book down. The stories from this collection are dying to be shared, each with their own voice straining to be heard.
"Do you remember what it was like to dream in Arabic?
Conversations and memories told and retold in Arabic?
In the dream, you fill out your immigration card knowing
residence, nationality, destination, and the form is all in Arabic.
On days that you are awake, you try to remember the word
for life or love or war, full of regret for losing your Arabic."
"Dreaming in Arabic", Call Me Exile
Author Biography
AARON BROWN is the author of the poetry collection, Acacia Road, winner of the 2016 Gerald Cable Book Award (Silverfish Review Press, 2018) and of the memoir, Less Than What You Once Were (Unsolicited Press, 2022). He has published work in Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, Image, World Literature Today online, Waxwing, and Transition, among others, and he is a contributing editor for Windhover. Brown grew up in Chad and now lives in Texas, where he is an assistant professor of English and directs the writing center at LeTourneau University. He holds an MFA from the University of Maryland.