At the volcanos edge, in exilic space, at the bottom of the Arctic Sea, or in the acid clouds of Venus, Mina Gorjis Scale traces life at its limits. The poems range across scales of distance, temperature and time, from vast to minute, glacial to volcanic, Pleistocene to present day, constellation to millipede. Adapting to the cold of a new continent opens a chromatic investigation of feeling. Shifting between scales, from insect to ancient star, Scale explores the forms, conditions and frequencies of survival. Scale builds on the considerable achievement of Gorjis first book, Art of Escape (2019). When it was selected for the Telegraph Poetry Book of the Month, Tristram Fane Saunders spoke of Gorjis meticulous explorations of the strange and sometimes darker side of nature and the different forms and meanings of escape: dandelions crossing the ocean, the journey of a gall wasp from Aleppo to England, the transformation of an armadillo into music. Gorjis poems feed into current ecological concerns, but in no conventional or cliched way. Marina Warner described her poems as building a place of safety-for herself, her family, her readers, and all those who are wandering and uprooted; her poetic methods take their cue from the many marvellous creatures she evokes and the multiple protective measures they adopt-nests, camouflage, mimicry, display. Above all, language can help create shelter.
Mina Gorji was born in Tehran and grew up in London. She lives in Cambridge where she is a lecturer in the English Faculty, Cambridge and a fellow of Pembroke College. Her debut poetry collection, Art of Escape, was published by Carcanet in 2020. Her other published work includes a study of John Clare, and essays on awkwardness, mess, weeds and rudeness. Her poems have appeared, among other places, in Magma, PN Review, London Magazine and The International Literary Quarterly.
* Her debut collection, Art of Escape, was a Telegraph Poetry Book of the Month (Jan 2020) * Scale builds on the considerable achievement of her first book, transitioning from ‘escape’ to ‘shelter’ * These poems build a place of safety for herself, her family, her readers, and all those who are wandering and uprooted * A collection full of creatures and their habitats, Gorji evokes and explores the multiple protective measures they adopt - nests, camouflage, mimicry, display * Feeds into current ecological concerns without being conventional or clichéd, and delighting in the sometimes strange and darker side of nature
