We Shall Meet In Other Deaths Shihemi Në Tjetër Vdekje

Clarion ReviewGjoka’s poems flow naturally from theme to theme, candidly narrating human desiresand fears.In a volume of poetry that runs the gamut from beautiful and candid to vulgar andhyperbolic, Sami Gjoka exposes human nature in all its savage and heartbreaking permutations.With a modern approach and intensity, We Shall Meet in Other Deaths uses patriotism,mysticism, and complex relationships to tell Gjoka’s unique story as an Albanian Americanliving and experiencing middle age in America. Drawing from insightful observation andspeculation, Gjoka defines, mourns, and celebrates mortality with poems designed to connectwith, and provoke, his readers.Many of Gjoka’s pieces are brilliantly drawn from experience with brutal honesty andnuance, and he is a man’s poet. While he uses women in his poems, often to illustrate theinjustice of society or the callousness of men, he makes no apologies about the fact that thewomen are written as faceless representations. In his poem “Glad I Do Not Have a Daughter,”he tells his make-believe daughter that she comes “for the balls of men, who think that youshould be pleased / If they spread you and they spray you / With semen.” He is coarse andgeneralizes both men and women into their most narrow and primitive selves. And yet,exaggerated as they may be, Gjoka uses pieces like these to grieve the faults of mankind andremind readers that these poems are a truth for many.We Shall Meet in Other Deaths is not formatted with chapter breaks or sections, but theorganization of the poems nevertheless feels deliberate and follows an organic thread throughseveral themes. Gjoka begins by observing and mourning death as an outsider, questioning thesignificance of human life with cynicism and hidden pain. From there, his poems exploresexuality, the predatory instincts of man, and whether God created man in his image.Gjoka takes on nationality and the tension of honor and disgrace in the long history ofhuman civilization. In one of his longer poems, “Trust Those Down to the Ground,” Gjokacovers centuries of religious and political unrest with thick footnotes and a masterful tone ofuncertainty. But when he eventually ends with “don’t you let little people who reach the peaksof Olympus / Tell you that they are the only legitimate sons of Gods, / For the lighter, higherthings will float and will rise,” he eloquently disarms an entire history. In the end, he returns todeath, writing several pieces in the first person to describe dying. There is a handful of lesssuccessful poems about why he is a poet, but Gjoka comes back to where he started, this timemore personally connected with death.There are scattered misspellings in the English poems, but having the Albanian andEnglish text side by side is a wonderful, constant reminder of the author’s experience andperspective. Gjoka’s voice is authentic and well suited to his poems, which are blindingly realand thought provoking.Sara Budzik