A truly impressive and stimulating poem that I’ve read recently is ‘Evental’ by Ali Alizadeh.

Ali Alizadeh says in the frontispiece that this poem is an attempt at versifying the tenets of the work of Alain Badiou and draws on a number of his key texts - Being and Event, Conditions, Ethics, and Metapolitics.

Using his customary couplets, Ali condenses to an intelligent précis a history of revolutionary France, canvasses troubled war times in Iran, tries mathematical formula that might contain the vocation of poetry and so on. The long poem ‘Evental’ is followed by a personal coda - another poem, ‘Evening Star’.

Published as a Vagabond Press Rare Object chapbook, this is another of their extensive list of affordable poetry publications. Visit Vagabond Press here. (The site is currently being rebuilt but you can email direct to salesATvagabondpressDOTnet.)

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