Songs from Under the River

If someone says a poetry reading is a perfect opportunity for a nap, check to see if their head is under a rock. Today’s poet performers have kicked it up a few hundred notches. Poets like Anis Mojgani, a two-time National Poetry Slam champion, winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam and author of Over the Anvil We Stretch and The Feather Room. Mojgani has put together his third gathering of poems, Songs From Under the River: Early and New Work, a striking collection of his best out-of-print and new works that jump off the page and prove a performance on their own.

Songs From Under the River showcases what is expected from an artist of Anis’s considerable talent. His words have the fluidity of paint strokes, creating vivid imagines while structured to invite rhythmic reading. Anis’s poetry proves a universal art form, telling his story while at the same time evoking the reader’s own personal interpretation.

Songs From Under the River exhibits all the brilliance Anis’s fans have been reveling in for years. He is playful and whimsical and has the uncanny ability to lift us up while grounding us; flawlessly exemplified in his performance of Shake the Dust, the YouTube video of which has had more than a million hits. The popularity of Anis and other like him proves poetry is not just alive — it’s flourishing.