Farhang honours the people, places, and things Patrick Woodcock has seen while working as a migrant writer, volunteer, and teacher for almost three decades.
This book is the first of three that will celebrate, memorialize, or eulogize the myriad moments that impacted his life while also shaping the shade and content of his writing.
Beginning in Poland in 1994 and ending in the hamlet of Paulatuk in the Northwest Territories in 2022, Farhang travels the globe through Lithuania, Russia, Iceland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, the Kurdish North of Iraq, Azerbaijan, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda.
From the salt mines in Wieliczka to the dirt paths to the Baraa government school in Tanzania, where he volunteered, Woodcock has tried to honour the moment before it becomes muddled, dulled, or romanticized.
Some of the poems are about friends or students, others are about the cracked knuckles of strangers, the crawling and the abandoned. Art, language, architecture, politics, and the suffering from politicians left unchecked are also a focus. Sadly, many of the poems are for friends and locations lost to either time, neglect, or warfare.
Farhang tries to chronicle some of what no longer exists or only lives on in the poet's head and soul.
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What measurements endured?- MONUMENTS, 1
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(ECW Press, 5 September 2023, e-galley, 144 pages, copy from poet's literary agent)
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I really enjoyed Farhang Book One though enjoyment seems the wrong word for reading something so deep and profound as this collection. I can honestly say I couldn't really relate to much of the events brought to life between the pages of this book especially when the poet visits some war ravaged countries and recalls some tragic and at times beautiful things he experiences. Still, the poems are so well written, engaging and packed with powerful imagery and ideas. I feel humbled to have read this.