Arab on Radar

Conceived in response to 9/11 and its aftermath, the striking poems in Angele Ellis's debut collection-both personal and political-chart the unique heritage and artistic growth of one Arab-American writer.

Reviews

"[A] curious mind reveals itself through invitingly angular verse...just as her political poems question rather than lecture, the appeal of Ellis' verse typically lies less with any particular sense of identity than in the music of its lines."-Bill O'Driscoll, Pittsburgh City Paper

"Ellis reveals acute observations, sometimes personal, sometimes political, in intelligently written lines...[her] poems are better and richer the second and third time, and she writes beyond the topics too often broached by Arab-American writers, such as food and war...she writes with the confidence and skill of a mature writer."-Zaid Shlah, Al-Jadid: A Review & Record of Arab Culture and Arts

"Reading Arab on Radar...feels like talking with a recently discovered sibling I never knew I had; a common elegy for (Arabic) language and the world that it created (the Lebanon of the mind), a piquant thirst for peace and justice...and a hope that language might function not only as ligature between us and where we come from, but as resource for those who work for a better world."-Phil Metres, Behind the Lines: Poetry, War, & Peacemaking

"Dedicated to her family, including those who have become 'family' throughout her life, Ellis...offers a mixture of poetry about her past, including images of her grandfather (pictured on the cover), meditations on love and loss, and her own political views, which have been influenced by her work with the peace and justice community."-Laura Powers, Pitt Magazine

"Written in a mixture of prose and well rhymed verse, these poems tackle Arab American identity from the Lebanese perspective. [Arab on Radar] hops from North America to Lebanon, from cities to villages, from wartime to downtime, ably capturing the emotional ups and downs associated with being of a suspicious heritage."-Kal, The Moor Next Door