For Love and Autonomy

Anahita Jamali Rad’s debut book of poetry juxtaposes Marxist economics with pop culture lyrics, from FKA Twigs to Sonic Youth, tangling the “You & I” of relationships and social identification. She asks: How is it possible to communicate when the “I” speaks from the margins? Who is the “I” when Motown’s doo-wop and post-punk’s Telecaster jangles shake up the body’s rhythm?

for love and autonomy speaks from a place of discomfort, where internalized pop songs mutate communication and meaning under the guises of individuality and romanticism. Jamali Rad’s “I” is highly textured, musical, and suspect. Her poems bring us together with their rebellious voices – only to push us away into alienation when mimicry falls flat, when the “I” loses its context, when we become oppressed, thingified, dependent, and belligerent.

Jamali Rad deals with the stuff of everyday life: work and sex, friendship and love. Her critical attention to the structure of these social relations creates a poetics of trial and failure, questioning the very “culture” responsible for its making as she forges a way for the possibility of radical resistance in language.