Susan Atefat Peckham

Poems that imagine Persian and Iranian American lives. In Deep Are These Distances Between Us, Susan Atefat-Peckham troubles preconceptions of nationhood and fixed systems of power by bringing the reader into the Iranian American home, offering glimpses of familial love and intimacy. Atefat-Peckham reaches for a network of care—the foundations of which are located in the ability of these poems to evoke the rich landscape of Iranian American lives. Articulating a spirituality that has no spatial or temporal boundaries, one which travels effortlessly between life and death, this collection is a treatise on the empathy we need now more than ever. An up-and-coming poet who died just four years after winning the National Poetry Series Award in 2000, Susan Atefat-Peckham was deeply concerned by the Islamophobic “Axis of Evil” rhetoric deployed after 9/11 and was skeptical of attempts by the United States to “democratize” the Middle East. Representing the lives of immigrants in the United States and Persians in Iran, as well as the distance that separates their experiences and the love that binds them together, Atefat-Peckham brings an important voice to that conflict—one of the family and the home, where glimpses of intimacy and care rival imperial oppression.

This stunning National Poetry Series winner invites readers behind the opaque curtain that has traditionally concealed the lives of modern and traditional Iranian women. Peckham's images alternately whet and sting the senses as rich chador fabrics and earthy cooking scents give way to scenes of women being persecuted and even killed. But it is love for family and culture that give this collection a gentle glow.Susan Atefat Peckham was born in New Jersey to Iranian immigrant parents. This is her first poetry collection.