ROOFTOPS OF TEHRAN

In Sholeh Wolpes Rooftops of Tehran , an unforgettable cast of characters emerges, from the morality policeman with the poison razor blade to the crow-girls flapping their black garments, from the woman with the bee-swarm tattoo emerging from her crotch to the author as a young girl on a Tehran rooftop with a Gods eye view hovering above a city / where beatings, cheatings, prayers, songs, / and kindness are all one colors shades. Here is a delicious book of poems, redolent of saffron and stained with pomegranate in its vision of Iran and of the immigrant life in California. Wolpes poems are at once humorous, sad, and sexy, which is to say that they are capriciously human, human even in that they dream of wings and are always threatening to take flight. Tony Barnstone, Award winning poet and translator, author of The Golem of Los Angeles