Point

Nasser Hussain is a Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at Leeds Beckett University in the UK. His first book, boldface, was published in 2014. He holds a PhD in English from the University of York (UK), an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor, and a BA in English from Queen’s University.Nasser has had a number of occupations: treeplanter, wilderness guide, amateur restaurateur, and now academic and poet. He likes his new job best. For him, poems are best described as ‘language with a pattern,’ and much of his recent practice takes pleasure in finding new patterns to wonder at. SKY WRI TEI NGS is the first expression of a larger interest in mass transit, and is his attempt to find a literal and poetic intersection between two things that ‘move’ us (in this case, planes, and poems). He currently lives in Sheffield, UK.

Praise for SKY WRI TEI NGS:‘While most of us use airport codes only functionally, Nasser Hussain uses them poetically. Out of the raw material of these unpromising nuggets, he has assembled, ingeniously, an entire book of poems. The Garden of Eden, it turns out, is always just a layover away.’ – The New York Times Magazine‘Hussain’s work invites us into a refreshing conceptual lift-off – that textual communication envelops all of our relations, inciting our co-incidental awareness of how language moves us to read, translate, and traverse meanings … Hussain’s SKY WRI TEI NGS propel us across literary categories, with turbo-wit, into CON CCP TUA LLY daring altitudes.’ – Margaret Christakos, Arc Poetry ‘Nasser Hussain’s playfulness of discovering hidden alphabets (“ALF AAH BET”) in impossible pathways between real places in the world does more than just decentre the practical value of these codes. The airport codes are, in fact, re-enciphered with new meanings, new insights, and new realities. As with any travel, it is making the connections that determines how far the trip will go. Hussain’s surprising leaps remap these banal codes into astonishingly free and funny articulations. Nations simply don’t exist in this pataphysical planet (except as fodder for jokes and pokes), where even cities are but footnotes to a debordered poetry.’ – Gregory Betts, Canadian Literature‘Hussain creates friction from the poem’s visual appearance and its orality, its “spokenness.” Hussain’s SKY WRI TEI NGS reveals another way to “do poetry.” The end-product is in the doing. As Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Hussain certainly did.’ – The Driftless Area ReviewPraise for Love Language:‘These are poems that long to dismiss the lyric’s most recent pretty mask of polite propriety and instead take us to the lyric’s ancient roots. It started way back, the poet says, “when a cave person made a grunt,” to speak the name of a thing. Indeed. This is the lyric’s ancient pact with the world: to spin playful language into seriousness of giving things their names – what are we without this speaking, this tune? Hussain knows this and writes beautiful poems – and I, for one, am grateful.’ – Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic‘Think of “time as a lantern,” suggests Nasser Hussain, in these inimitable poems that take play seriously and allow seriousness to enter the room disguised as incantation. Hussain’s humour is never complacent; it is the opposite of a defence mechanism (we are encouraged to imagine such a thing) and wryly sidesteps the bad binary of conservative withdrawal as set against algorithm-envenomed hyperassertion. He puts into words a new masculinity maturer than we deserve, that acknowledges swerves of defiance to be inseparable from underswells of doubt.’ – Vidyan Ravinthiran, author of The Million-Petalled Flower of Being Here‘Hussain’s poems both puzzle and illuminate, as he delivers answers in no-answers, clarity through absurdity. Can we break down the inanity of our modern lives with verve and levity? Yes, indeed. Love Language unveils the possibilities.’ – The Toronto Star‘Nasser Hussain moves toward a more expansive version of experimentation; in a time of physical lockdown, his pandemic poetics refuse to be confined. And so we have poems that repeat and hypnotize as English becomes more and more absurd. But most of all, we see a deep affection for language: its multiple meanings, the ways it makes us feel, and for the ways that language lets us talk about complicated things playfully, like love. Generously handing out tenderness like a child with a sack full of Valentine's Day cards, the poems of Love Language revel in love’s warm glow and make sure there's enough room for anyone to join.’ – CBC Books ‘Love Language is good romantic comedy. It yearns, it’s often bittersweet, and it’s consistently very funny. Hussain is unapologetically cute, affectionate really, with his language.’ – Miles Forrester, The Ex-Puritan