Nazar Boy

Tarik Dobbs (b.1997; Dearborn, MI) is a writer, an artist, and a Poetry Foundation Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow. Tarik’s poems appear in the Best New Poets and Best of the Net anthologies, as well as AGNI, Guernica, and Poetry Magazine, among others. Tarik helps run poetry.onl, and served as a guest editor at Mizna: Prose, Poetry, and Art Exploring Arab America as well as Zoeglossia: A Community for Poets with Disabilities. Tarik received an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, and is currently an M.F.A. fellow in art, theory, practice at Northwestern University.

LIVED HERE
POEM WHERE EVERY BIRD IS A DRONE
DUPLEX: MY BROTHER WAS BORN BOTH ALLY & COMBATANT
THE WIRE
PERSONA POEM AS AMERICA
NAMESAKE WITH NO HISTORY FOUND
THE POET CONSIDERS THEIR ROLE
DRAGPHRASIS: ALEXIS MATEO CALLS HOME THE TROOPS WITH A DEATH DROP
DEAR PRE-QUEER LOVER,
REFLECTION IN STAINLESS STEEL MIRROR DIORAMA WITH ACCORDION FOLD
RONDEAU: IN 1990 ONE SUNSET EQUALIZES THE LIGHT BETWEEN A CHECKPOINT
CONTROL ROOM AND A DARKENED HALL TO REVEAL THE SILHOUETTE OF AN ISRAELI
SOLDIER
HOME ON THE RANGE, GAZA STRIP
DECONSTRUCTING MY BIRTH
WHEN MY MOM RENTED A HOUSE ACROSS THE STREET FROM A DOLLAR GENERAL
X-RAY DIPTYCH IN BEN GURION AIRPORT
SKY BRIDGE RENDERING ABOVE MINNEAPOLIS & THE WEST BANK
SON THROWING STONES IN THE STREET
ANTI-DRONE NIQAB MADE FROM SILVER
MAD HONEY
MY UNCLE WHO DIED OF AIDS PROBABLY
EVERY MORNING I TAKE A BUS THROUGH THE WEST BANK, MINNEAPOLIS
FLY INFESTED HOUSEPLANT
BRACELET OF SILENCE
PERSONA POEM AS IN-HOME DRONE
NUB
A DJINN HUMS IN SAKHNIN
PARADE IN GAZA: THE MODEL IS ABOUT TO BE BURNED
LANDAYS: ON EID AL-ADHA, MEN ON TV TIE A LENGTH OF MANILLA ROPE
EVERYTHING MY FATHER TOUCHES
THE FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD CONSIDERS HIS CLOSET
FINALLY WRITING THE POEM
NUB (ORIGIN STORY)
A SYNDROME RECEIVES HIS LIFETIME SERVICE AWARD
ON IRAQ WAR VETERANS
PORTRAIT WITH UNKNOWN DIMENSIONS
THAT JULY, MY SITO CALLS FROM DAMASCUS AT MIDNIGHT
NOT AN EXIT

NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS