Chrysopylae - Deerbrook Editions

Diving After Truth’s Glimmer: The Poetry of Omer Zamir - Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold interview: Scene 4

Praise for Chrysopylae

Israeli-born poet Omer Zamir’s latest volume of nineteen new poems is filled with passion, bold experimentation, and a skill at word smithing and image-making that is nothing short of brilliant! The range of subjects has breadth and maturity and contrast; the lyrics soar from youthful exuberance to edgy, embittered, even nightmarish darkness. Always, they are crafted with both precision and provocative spontaneity that continually surprises with its juxtapositions, original images, and free but sculpted meter. Many seem to be experimentations in voice and form: some taut and terse, others densely longer and laden with complex syntax and imagery, intricate yet varied use of devices such as internal rhyme or alliteration or assonance, but all with a mastery of the English language that is astounding and with an innate musicality that underscores the verse with its emotion. But perhaps what is most striking about them is their unsparing honesty from the open declaration of love and sensuality in “Yeah,” to the haunting mournfulness of “Matthew,” to the anguished memories of “She and He,” or the disturbingly powerful “The Passion.” Self-taught as a writer, Zamir has clearly been reading a wide range of great literature, and one hears echoes of writers like James Joyce, Gerard Manley-Hopkins, even of visionaries like William Blake. But his verse is far too spontaneous and authentic to be anything but singular.—Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold

Omer Zamir’s new collection, Chrysopylae, decodes a mind turned in on itself, pills sealed in “tin wombs impatient for birth” that wait like “…little saints/ Unborn,” the paternal legacy in a bottle of a “Sea-tameless thirst//…shrine and anodyne, the Cain, the tart, / The arc and flood…” There is a Howl in these poems that reaches past the personal to the flow of collective experience. In Chrysopylae, Zamir has cast a net with gems at every crossing. A singular book for those who dare.

—Paul Pines, author of Divine Madness

This first collection of poems and prose by Zamir Omer shows his promise as a new and growing voice. Though brief, book shows both variety in subject and cohesion in tone. His poems flow rhythmically and take you places through vivid imagery and imaginative vocabulary. Standouts in the collection include "Rooms", "Tonguing a Wound" and "Full Throttle to the Bottle".

—Paul Stebleton, author of Bus Station Meditations

Zamir Omer has penned a sharp and achingly evocative collection of poems. The words contain a potent yearning - like longing for water in the desert - uncomfortable and utterly human. Omer's poetry is at once foreign and intimate. The images linger like salt on the skin, burning in your consciousness long after the reading has concluded.

—Rivera Sun, author of The Dandelion Insurrection