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Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance: Poems
An exquisite and humane collection set to leave its mark on American poetics of the body and the body politic. In Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance , Fady Joudah has written love poems to the lovely and unlovely, the loved and unloved. Here he celebrates moments of delight and awe with his wife, his mentors, his friends, and the beauty of the natural world. Yet he also finds tenderness for the other, the dead, and the disappeared, bringing together the language of medicine with the language of desire in images at once visceral and vulnerable. A symptomatic moon. A peach, quartered like a heart, and a heart, quartered like a peach. “I call the finding of certain things loss.� Joudah is a translator between the heart and the mind, the flesh and the more-than-flesh, the word body and the world body—and between languages, with a polyglot’s hyperresonant sensibility. In “Sagittal Views,� the book’s middle section, Joudah collaborates with Golan Haji, a Kurdish Syrian writer, to foreground the imaginative act of constructing memory and history. Together they mark the place the past occupies in the body, the cut that “runs deeper than speech.� Generous in its scope, inventive in its movements and syntax, Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance is a richly rewarding and indispensable collection.
- GenresPoetry
104 pages, Paperback
First published March 13, 2018
9 people are currently reading
334 people want to read
About the author
Fady Joudah
25Ìýbooks79ÌýfollowersJoudah was born in Austin, Texas in 1971 to Palestinian refugee parents, and grew up in Libya and Saudi Arabia. He returned to the United States to study to become a doctor, first attending the University of Georgia in Athens, and then the Medical College of Georgia, before completing his medical training at the University of Texas. Joudah currently practices as an ER physician in Houston, Texas. He has also volunteered abroad with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders.
Joudah's poetry has been published in a variety of publications, including Poetry, The Iowa Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Kenyon Review, Drunken Boat, Prairie Schooner and Crab Orchard Review.
In 2006, he published The Butterfly's Burden, a collection of recent poems by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish translated from Arabic, which was a finalist for the 2008 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
In 2012, Joudah published Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems, a collection of poems by Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan translated from Arabic, which won the 2013 International Griffin Poetry Prize.
His book of poetry Alight was published in 2013.
In 2017, Joudah translated Zaqtan's The Silence That Remains.
His 2021 poetry collection, Tethered to the Stars, was cited by Cleveland Review of Books as a poetry collection that "does not teach us how to answer any question it poses with a stylized rhetoric, a self-important flourish; the poems model a lyrical thinking which prompts the question itself."
Joudah won the 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize, given to an American writer of “exceptional talent. His work entitled [...] was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection Shortlist and longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry.
Joudah's poetry has been published in a variety of publications, including Poetry, The Iowa Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Kenyon Review, Drunken Boat, Prairie Schooner and Crab Orchard Review.
In 2006, he published The Butterfly's Burden, a collection of recent poems by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish translated from Arabic, which was a finalist for the 2008 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
In 2012, Joudah published Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems, a collection of poems by Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan translated from Arabic, which won the 2013 International Griffin Poetry Prize.
His book of poetry Alight was published in 2013.
In 2017, Joudah translated Zaqtan's The Silence That Remains.
His 2021 poetry collection, Tethered to the Stars, was cited by Cleveland Review of Books as a poetry collection that "does not teach us how to answer any question it poses with a stylized rhetoric, a self-important flourish; the poems model a lyrical thinking which prompts the question itself."
Joudah won the 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize, given to an American writer of “exceptional talent. His work entitled [...] was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection Shortlist and longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 15, 2018
I just returned home from in Tampa. While there, I attended a reading of Milkweed poets, including Fady Joudah. I returned to my hotel room and discovered that one of the galleys of poetry I had for books coming out this next week was the same guy! Cool.
I was surprised to find out that Joudah is a doctor of internal medicine, and also a poet. There are moments in these poems where it is almost as if you see through his doctor's perspective, with skin abrasions and cadavers, disease and corpses. The body, but from a distance. Other moments, the body is close and intimate, or something that can cause violence or pain.
There is also a section of poems written in collaboration with Golan Haji, a Syrian Kurdish poet, whose book of poems I just happened to buy from AWP before going to this reading. What are the odds?
My favorites include:
"The Magic of Apricot" (rather than the madeleine as memory....)
"Epithalamion" (which means a poem celebrating a marriage, and it is lovely)
"The Sole Witness to My Despair, Declare"
"Traditional Anger (in the Sonora)"
"Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance"
I'm not a huge fan of the paragraph poem, but enjoyed "Palestine, Texas" when he read it to the group.
I was surprised to find out that Joudah is a doctor of internal medicine, and also a poet. There are moments in these poems where it is almost as if you see through his doctor's perspective, with skin abrasions and cadavers, disease and corpses. The body, but from a distance. Other moments, the body is close and intimate, or something that can cause violence or pain.
There is also a section of poems written in collaboration with Golan Haji, a Syrian Kurdish poet, whose book of poems I just happened to buy from AWP before going to this reading. What are the odds?
My favorites include:
"The Magic of Apricot" (rather than the madeleine as memory....)
"Epithalamion" (which means a poem celebrating a marriage, and it is lovely)
"The Sole Witness to My Despair, Declare"
"Traditional Anger (in the Sonora)"
"Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance"
I'm not a huge fan of the paragraph poem, but enjoyed "Palestine, Texas" when he read it to the group.
August 8, 2024
"...writing may exit the cage but the cage remains and grows, or am I speaking of the life of a footnoter; I always hold back from writing in the margins of the clearest sentences: those that lost their status as feeling once they were excised by skillful hands wielding sharp instruments, a manufacture of refraction..."
April 21, 2018
I knew Joudah as a translator from Arabic, but did not know he is a doctor. Medical terminology and themes occur along side natural imagery and the incorporation of art and literary references. The experience of being a Muslim in America today and the reality of violence, loss and exile from the war torn Middle East is never far from the surface of these poems.
Returning to this collection I upgraded my rating to 5 stars. My full review can be found here:
Returning to this collection I upgraded my rating to 5 stars. My full review can be found here:
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January 17, 2025I love Fady Joudah's poetry and I need to read all of his works - his translations are great too. I wasn't aware my library had this one until I came across it in a Palestinian authors book display in the poetry section (this made me really happy).
If you want something more specifically about the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza, I recommend his [...], your library catalog might have it listed as "[Ellipsis]".
This is an older book. It does talk about Palestine, and about a wide range of other topics too. I was especially happy with the medical metaphors (he is an MD) in part because I'd just read another, prose book that constantly misused medical terminology. And here it was done so subtly, beautifully, but also in a way where you get even more out of it if you know about the terminology. (I am not an MD, but I am a semi-lapsed health scientist.) His poetry is both gentle and sharp.
Time to read even more by him - the next up I think will be his 2023 translation of The Blue Light by Hussein Barghouthi, because I've really liked Barghouthi's first book of autobiographic prose in English (Among the Almond Trees, translated by Ibrahim Muhawi). Seems like a win-win, an awesome author translated by another awesome author. And I think my next book of Fady Joudah's own poetry will be Alight.
Find me elsewhere: |
_____
Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library
If you want something more specifically about the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza, I recommend his [...], your library catalog might have it listed as "[Ellipsis]".
This is an older book. It does talk about Palestine, and about a wide range of other topics too. I was especially happy with the medical metaphors (he is an MD) in part because I'd just read another, prose book that constantly misused medical terminology. And here it was done so subtly, beautifully, but also in a way where you get even more out of it if you know about the terminology. (I am not an MD, but I am a semi-lapsed health scientist.) His poetry is both gentle and sharp.
Time to read even more by him - the next up I think will be his 2023 translation of The Blue Light by Hussein Barghouthi, because I've really liked Barghouthi's first book of autobiographic prose in English (Among the Almond Trees, translated by Ibrahim Muhawi). Seems like a win-win, an awesome author translated by another awesome author. And I think my next book of Fady Joudah's own poetry will be Alight.
Find me elsewhere: |
_____
Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library
January 27, 2025
I like poetry that is lyrical but that I can still understand. There were three poems that I found to be excellent, but I didn't understand most of them. It probably speaks more about me than the book, but I couldn't even tell you what most of them were about or what they were describing. I really wanted to like this one. The poems that I understood were great, so I'd like to read more of his poetry. Maybe this collection just wasn't for me.
August 15, 2023
I wanted to like this book more than I did. I love the idea of it - the intertwining of science and what’s natural, exploring life/Earth/the body/nationhood/culture through both a technical and emotional lens - but I feel like so much got lost in the high level of scientific vocabulary. I know it’s intended to have a lot of technical words, and it’s fascinating to a point, but as an average, non-doctor reader, I couldn’t keep up and it left me frustrated. That being said, there were some pretty incredible lines in this book. Some examples:
From “I, the sole witness to my dreams, declare�
“A beaver / is building a home in my blood.�
From “Kohl�
“A Sahara weeps its molten iris�
“Ruins are tattoos of earth�
From “The floor is yours�
“Your touchscreen / my ringtone heart�
I respect this book 100% for what it is. Maybe I’m just not the target audience. But if you’re like me and you want to read Joudah’s poetry, prepare to either Google lots of medical terminology, or acquiesce (like me, lol) and accept that you won’t be able to understand a lot of it and try to go along for the ride.
From “I, the sole witness to my dreams, declare�
“A beaver / is building a home in my blood.�
From “Kohl�
“A Sahara weeps its molten iris�
“Ruins are tattoos of earth�
From “The floor is yours�
“Your touchscreen / my ringtone heart�
I respect this book 100% for what it is. Maybe I’m just not the target audience. But if you’re like me and you want to read Joudah’s poetry, prepare to either Google lots of medical terminology, or acquiesce (like me, lol) and accept that you won’t be able to understand a lot of it and try to go along for the ride.
Shelved as 'dnf'
March 1, 2021DNF @15%
2018; Milkweed Editions
I force read the first few poems, and then started skimming all the ones I could not get into, so was done in five minutes. The poetry was not to my liking. I could not relate or feel for the poems. For me, I usually either love or don't poems.
***I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.***
2018; Milkweed Editions
I force read the first few poems, and then started skimming all the ones I could not get into, so was done in five minutes. The poetry was not to my liking. I could not relate or feel for the poems. For me, I usually either love or don't poems.
***I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.***
June 1, 2018
Like Stevens with a grey's anatomy book. looking forward to reading more by this author
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December 2, 2018“my bare feet and the plasma core of the world / smeared by human hands / the magic of apricot says / no one’s ever nude on radiology film.� —From poem “The Magic of Apricot�
August 3, 2019
A strange and beautiful mix of joy, sorrow, grief, and the poetics of health and life.
March 2, 2025
I had a hard time getting into this one, I went into it blind and found myself struggling a bit, the poems are very intricate, and require some serious concentration, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it’s not what I personally gravitate towards usually. The mix of medical terms juxtaposed with melodic and pensive writing makes this collection quite unique. Definitely challenging but worthy nonetheless.
I DREAMED YOU
a shrine of two
one who's visited for a vow
and one who floats on water as glow whether visitor or visited love astounds me
as if you were some higher form of what I've lost and then returns to me
when the curtain's lifted
I climb your hands
my body falls as glass my soul's up in fragrance some climbing is ascension some is collapse
I dreamed you
combust the earth without catalyst some eyes are mirrors some mirrors are dust
I DREAMED YOU
a shrine of two
one who's visited for a vow
and one who floats on water as glow whether visitor or visited love astounds me
as if you were some higher form of what I've lost and then returns to me
when the curtain's lifted
I climb your hands
my body falls as glass my soul's up in fragrance some climbing is ascension some is collapse
I dreamed you
combust the earth without catalyst some eyes are mirrors some mirrors are dust
May 28, 2023
Lots of beautiful fruit imagery. Feels like a tour of the Middle East and the experiences that the poet and a lover went through separately as children and together as adults. Brings in medical imagery (as he is a doctor in addition to being a poet) that I wished connected more to the lived human experience.
"I had come across that which will end me, ex-
tend me, at least once, without knowing it" (p. 7).
"Amira, tonight
a moon will rise like a watermelon crescent
a Kurd wishes for his sleeping daughter
just before the story ends" (p. 43).
"Polyglot
in which language do you dream
and in which
will we speak in heaven" (p. 72).
"I had come across that which will end me, ex-
tend me, at least once, without knowing it" (p. 7).
"Amira, tonight
a moon will rise like a watermelon crescent
a Kurd wishes for his sleeping daughter
just before the story ends" (p. 43).
"Polyglot
in which language do you dream
and in which
will we speak in heaven" (p. 72).
December 1, 2024
A poetry collection by Palestinian-American poet and translator Fady Joudah that explores themes of death and humanity. While I enjoyed Joudah's writing style and themes, I struggled to connect with some poems due to their frequent use of scientific language whose unfamiliarity took me out of the reading experience. I'll definitely check out more of Joudah's work but this collection wasn't entirely my cup of tea. With this said, some of my favorites include "The Magic of Apricot," "Horses," and "An Algebra Come Home."
January 1, 2024
“P´Ç±ô²â²µ±ô´Ç³Ù
in which language do you dream
and in which
will we speak in heaven�
I had the opportunity to meet Fady at AWP several years ago in Portland after his panel and was so excited to pick up this collection. His use of specifically anatomical language as a doctor was foreign to me in this kind of writing and I did have to pause to look things up every so often to ensure I was fully understanding the imagery he was using, but it is well worth it.
in which language do you dream
and in which
will we speak in heaven�
I had the opportunity to meet Fady at AWP several years ago in Portland after his panel and was so excited to pick up this collection. His use of specifically anatomical language as a doctor was foreign to me in this kind of writing and I did have to pause to look things up every so often to ensure I was fully understanding the imagery he was using, but it is well worth it.
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July 31, 2024Yet another collection of poetry that reminds me I am not that smart. This author is a physician and it shows my friends. He weaves medical terminology throughout his poems and uses so many words I have never even dreamed of. I used the dictionary function on my kindle at least 20 times. I’m not even kidding.
February 2, 2020
Ethereal
An intoxicating mix of word, thought, history, scholarship. I'm transported by these lines. They take me out of time, off into the mysterious cosmos. We're fortunate to have a poet like this walking in our midst.
An intoxicating mix of word, thought, history, scholarship. I'm transported by these lines. They take me out of time, off into the mysterious cosmos. We're fortunate to have a poet like this walking in our midst.
March 14, 2025
quite intricate with strong recurring medical imagery, which was often very beautiful. i wish i enjoyed this collection more, i couldn't understand much of what was written about and therefore never entirely connected. many lovely poems and lines throughout, but as a whole, not my favorite of his.
May 27, 2019
Some of the content was okay, but the majority of it felt like nonsense.
April 29, 2023
Joudah has some great metaphors.
December 5, 2023
I need a better knowledge of medical/biological jargon to fully appreciate some of the poems
January 3, 2024
i think i forgot how to read and enjoy poetry.
April 1, 2025
"I hold grief close to brace myself for the expected"
October 24, 2021
Dumb pretentious bullshit. This is what people who hate poetry think poetry is like.
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April 13, 2018811.6 J861f 2018
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