How to see palace pillars as if they were palm trees

The book opens with a single line of poetry about “Abdallāh – The Slain” (Abdallāh al-Qatīl), a poet said to have been killed by the last thing he saw: the castle’s columns appearing to him as palm trees. The remainder of the book consists of footnotes – on each word in the verse and on the works of this poet, who exists only on the margins of the Arabic literary canon. The text expands into reflections on monumentality, architectural description, the disappearance of texts and histories, and the various ways a metaphor might destroy its poet.