Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2017
A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry
Claudia Rankine described the poems in Alsadir's first book as 'lawless,
' 'provocative, and 'heartbreaking' as they 'converse from the inside
out...come alive in the back and forth of a mind attempting to
understand what it means to be in relation to.'
Fourth Person Singular continues to blow open the relationship between
self and world in a working through of lyric shame, bending poetic form
through fragment, lyric essay, aphorisms mined from the unconscious, and
pop-up associations, to explore the complexities, congruities,
disturbances - as well as the beauty - involved in self-representation
in language. As unexpected as it is bold, Alsadir's ambitious tour de
force demands we pay new attention to the current conversation about the
nature of lyric - and human relationships - in the 21st century.