<DIV><I>We used to play soccer in the monsoon rains.<BR>Through my windows, I can see acres of fields,<BR>Lying in the ruins of the wind.</I><BR><BR>The poems in <I>City of Rivers</I>?the first full-length collection from 23-year-old wunderkind Zubair Ahmed?are clear and cool as a glass of water. Grounded in his childhood in Bangladesh, Ahmed's spare, evocative poems cast a knowing eye on the wider world, telling us what it's like to be displaced and replaced, relocated and dislocated. His poems are suffused with a graceful, mysterious pathos?and also with joy, humor, and longing?with the full range of human emotions. <I>City of Rivers</I> is a remarkable and precocious debut.<BR></DIV>