Moez Surani (born April 10, 1979) is a Canadian poet and artist. He is the author of the poetry collections ''Reticent Bodies'' and ''Floating Life'',
and the booklength poem ''عملية Operación Opération Operation 行动 Операция''. His fourth book is titled ''Are the Rivers in Your Poems Real''. Surani is the nephew of developmental biologist
Azim Surani.
Career
Poems from Surani's debut collection, ''Reticent Bodies'', began appearing in 2001, when Canadian poet
Todd Swift published the anthology ''100 Poets Against the War.'' Surani's "Realpolitik," initially published under the pseudonym "d.m.," was selected as part of this critique of the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
. In 2001, he won the Kingston Literary Award and
Queen's University's richest writing prize, the Helen Richards Campbell Memorial Scholarship for excellence in creative writing. From 2002 to 2008, his poetry was published in Canada and abroad.
''The Dublin Quarterly'' selected his poem "Alley Dolle" as their choice for their 2005 poem of the year, citing its "movement and music."
''Reticent Bodies'' was published in fall, 2009. Poet and critic
Jacob McArthur Mooney stated that the book is a return to the Canadian
romantic mode of
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. He was inducted in ...
and
Irving Layton. In the ''Journal of Canadian Poetry'', another review praised the book for its expressiveness.
In 2008, Surani received a Chalmers Arts Fellowship to visit his ancestral homelands,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
East Africa. During this trip, Surani wrote "Kilimanjaro Journal" and the poem "Are the Rivers in Your Poems Real," which won the ''Antigonish Reviews Great Blue Heron Poetry Prize in 2010.
That award's jury citation states that the poem "dramatizes the tension between the world of the collective myth and poetic imagination on the one hand and individual experience and empirical decision on the other."
Surani's second poetry collection, ''Floating Life'', was published in spring, 2012. The book's themes have been characterized as travel, "connections made and left behind, and, above all, the fleeting nature of experience."
In interview, Surani said that ''Floating Lifes prevailing theme is a divestment of personal power.
Surani's poem "It All Keeps" was included in ''Best Canadian Poetry 2013'' and "Poems to be Performed by kevin mcpherson eckhoff (with or without a Green Elfin Mask)" was included in ''Best Canadian Poetry 2014.''
In 2014, Surani exhibited a work in progress, ''عملية Operación Opération Operation 行动 Операция''. This poem collects together the names of military operations by 192 UN-member countries from the founding of the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
to the present.
In 2018, Surani and Canadian artist Nina Leo exhibited two scents, My
Hiroshima and My
Waco
Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...
in the custom scent work, ''Heresies.'' In 2018, Surani and Leo also exhibited ''The Irrefutable Border: China Series.''
In 2019, Surani was awarded a
MacDowell Colony
MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowel ...
fellowship.
Surani has defined poetry as "the residue of living."
Poetry
* ''Reticent Bodies'' (2009)
* ''Floating Life'' (2012)
* ''عملية Operación Opération Operation 行动 Операция'' (2016)
* ''Are the Rivers in Your Poems Real'' (2019)
Fiction
* ''The Legend of Baraffo'' (2023)
Art
* ''Heresies'' (2018)
* ''The Irrefutable Border: China Series'' (2018)
* ''The Irrefutable Border: Canada Series'' (2021)
* ''Was Yesterday So Much Better Than Today?'' (2021)
* ''Summa'' (2023)
References
External links
Author's WebsitePublisher's web page on SuraniPublisher's web page on SuraniExcerpt of ''عملية Operación Opération Operation 行动 Операция'' in ''Harper's Magazine''*
ttps://www.cbc.ca/books/the-150-page-poem-that-moez-surani-spent-four-years-writing-1.4024769 CBC interview with Surani about ''عملية Operación Opération Operation 行动 Операция''An hour-long interview with Norway's House of Literature How to Proceed podcast seriesAn essay on Surani and Leo's collaboration by Steven Matijcio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Surani, Moez
20th-century Canadian poets
Canadian male poets
Writers from Montreal
Queen's University at Kingston alumni
Canadian writers of Asian descent
Concordia University alumni
Living people
Kenyan people of Indian descent
Writers from Toronto
1979 births
Canadian people of Indian descent
20th-century Canadian male writers