That You in Me

An Iraqi, living in Norway, Ali Alsam brings a unique and musical vision to the essential subjects of Love and War. In words laid out on the page like treasures, the poems use space like a pause for turns of thought. "A pause," he writes, "on a journey/from mystery/and back." The collection, "That You in Me", a single poem made up of many parts, is a journey of discovery. At the centre, enfolded within the struggle and joy in the relationship between lovers, lies Desert Storm, the
Iraqi War of 1991. We progress through fracture and brokenness towards finding a place for the self both within the self and in the universe.