"Death, old age aside, Nothing is more humblingthan a book or a woman.A beautiful woman."With a multicultural aesthetic perspective and a poetic voice that is simultaneously autobiographical and concrete, emotional and surrealistic, universal and humanist, Lebanese-American poet Mansour Ajami introduces his first collection of lyrical expression in "Words in the Memory of the Night."This diverse compilation of more than eighty poems demonstrates diversity and difference of theme, employment of metaphor, idiom, and intellectual and emotional interplay, while exploring philosophical issues as time, space, memory, dreams, youth, old age, love, solitude, and on occasion, such whimsical topics as navels. While writing about everyday experiences like waiting for his children to come home, Ajami presents his poetry with a simple and straightforward style that is easily relatable to others in all stages of life.In "Words in the Memory of the Night, " a new poet emerges and shares his culture along with his heart in a memorable collection of modern poetry.

"Death, old age aside, Nothing is more humblingthan a book or a woman.A beautiful woman."With a multicultural aesthetic perspective and a poetic voice that is simultaneously autobiographical and concrete, emotional and surrealistic, universal and humanist, Lebanese-American poet Mansour Ajami introduces his first collection of lyrical expression in "Words in the Memory of the Night."This diverse compilation of more than eighty poems demonstrates diversity and difference of theme, employment of metaphor, idiom, and intellectual and emotional interplay, while exploring philosophical issues as time, space, memory, dreams, youth, old age, love, solitude, and on occasion, such whimsical topics as navels. While writing about everyday experiences like waiting for his children to come home, Ajami presents his poetry with a simple and straightforward style that is easily relatable to others in all stages of life.In "Words in the Memory of the Night, " a new poet emerges and shares his culture along with his heart in a memorable collection of modern poetry.

Author Mansour Ajami was born during World War II in Saghbine, a poverty-stricken Lebanese village that had remained virtually unchanged since the Middle Ages. His autobiography, The Book of Generations: A Reunion with Memory, traces his adaptation to the culture and thought of twenty-first-century America. With a humorous, offbeat perspective, Ajami presents the inevitable culture clashes that shaped his intellectual evolution. He recounts ancient folklore and medieval church practices, the discovery of luscious and accomplished Western women, and the ways of poor fathers and obdurate donkeys. Whether he is beguiling American university students with seemingly preposterous snake stories or dealing with the tragic loss of his first child, Ajami's humor and emotion translate universally. The Book of Generations ends with a soliloquy on a possible future in which he sees himself alone in the world, musing on the necessity of inventing spaceships, computer chips, and potato chips, and on the avoidance of long johns and obtuse grammar. Generations: A Reunion with Memory, from peasant cures for illness to the hustle and bustle of modern society, provide Ajami's perception of the human condition.