Skip to content
Scan a barcode
Scan
Hardcover Archive of Desire: A Poem in Four Parts for C. P. Cavafy Book

ISBN: 1524732605

ISBN13: 9781524732608

Archive of Desire: A Poem in Four Parts for C. P. Cavafy

The National Book Award, PEN/Voelcker, and NAACP Image Award winner returns with another inventive and boundary-breaking book: a sensual journey ignited in the archives of iconic queer Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy.

In her first book, Robin Coste Lewis's poems exploded the imagery of the Black female figure from antiquity through the present day; her second was an expansive hybrid photographic-poetic study of human migration and the human family; now she delivers a slim "performance in four parts," which originated as an actual sound performance with the composer Vijay Iyer, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and visual artist Julie Mehretu. With Lewis as the speaking voice, the quartet reflected on desire, diaspora, and the liminal spaces where art asserts itself, ignited by their encounters with Cavafy's archive in the heart of Athens. Lewis weaves in and out of Cavafy's rooms, notebooks, and the suppressed erotic need underpinning his work, conversing directly with him: "often you/ reminded us/ the only true // barbarians/ are the ones raging in silence / inside // of our own / minds." But she brings equal parts of herself to this study of artistry and sensuality, as in the short, tender section entitled "Cavafy in Compton: Self-Portrait at 16."

As in all Lewis's works, she reaches across centuries here to express what is timeless and not bound by our current moment or our single selves: the discipline and glory of art, the give and take of love, the kiss that lives in the moment, the unfolding journey of being human whose contours only become clear with the passage of time, the igniting of memory, and the words we find to describe the journey.

Recommended

Format: Hardcover

$21.08
Save $5.92!
List Price $27.00
Releases 10/7/2025

Related Subjects

Poetry

Customer Reviews

0 rating
Copyright © 2025 Thriftbooks.com Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information | Cookie Policy | Cookie Preferences | Accessibility Statement
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
GoDaddy Verified and Secured
Timestamp: 7/18/2025 5:29:31 PM
Server Address: 10.20.32.147