The Alchemist's Diary

""I'm growing old, resembling/ more each day the man/ I've understood three times,"" writes Charara in this collection of poems about daily struggle, personal and political. Born in Detroit to emigr parents, Charara does not shy away from blunt descriptions of Israel's impact on the Arab world: a Hebron shoemaker knows that, nearby, ""boys are washing cars,/ housewives water lawns""; meanwhile, in his neighborhood, ""[t]he taps have not been running/ since July seventeenth,/ his wedding day./ Now it's twenty-nine days."" He writes of his mother's death, his father's mysterious emotional life, the way Detroit comforts its own with 24-hour donut shops. (Oct. 15)