Self-Mythology

Debut poetry collection from descendent of Chinese and Iranian political refugees

This debut collection explores multiraciality and the legacy of exile alongside the poet’s uniquely American origin as the only child of political refugees from China and Iran.

In the search for a true home, what does it mean to be confronted instead by an insurmountable sense of otherness? This question dwells at the center of Saba Keramati’s Self-Mythology, which explores multiraciality and the legacy of exile alongside the poet’s uniquely American origin as the only child of political refugees from China and Iran. Keramati navigates her ancestral past while asking what language and poetry can offer to those who exist on the margins of contemporary society.

“These astonishing poems, crackling with wit and music, scrutinize and shoulder the histories that hammer the self into existence. The poems are rendered in language so beautiful, so startling I often gasped. Saba Keramati is an immensely gifted poet. In Self-Mythology, she reminds us the self is plural, fluid. Her interrogations are empowering and instructive and deftly crafted.” —Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine