Kazim Ali in APR
The July/August 2007 issue of American Poetry Review features a fine, essay length column called "Poetry and Space" by Kazim Ali. It's an intuitive, beautifully-written meditation on how the spaces we inhabit (and leave behind) resonate through our spiritual and productive lives. Pieces of such clarity, depth and emotional intelligence are rare, even in publications that bill themselves as showcases of fine contemporary writing like APR.
It's good enough to make you want to scratch your head and ask "Who is this Kazim Ali?"
Many Buffalo area readers will remember Ali as the ambitious and engaging young poet of Indian Muslim heritage who spent part of his youth in the Buffalo suburbs. He attended the University at Albany before returning here (where his parents still reside) to become an active participant in the local literary scene in the late 1990s. His work has been published on The News' Poetry Page and he did a stint as a Writer-in-Residence for Just Buffalo Literary Center.
Although his work back then was much more "performance-oriented" than what he is doing now, he always seemed to be absorbing new influences and refining his craft. After leaving Buffalo for New York City and the MFA Writing Program at New York University in 1999, he began publishing his work in many leading literary magazines and journals.
Buffalo's own Geoffrey Gatza's BlazeVox Books published Ali's "lyric" novel Quinn's Passage in December of 2004. The novel was named one of the Best Books of 2005 by Chronogram magazine. His first book of poems, The Far Mosque, was published by Alice James Books in October of 2005 and selected for that publisher's New England/New York Award. His new collection of poems The Fortieth Day will be published in 2008 by Rochester's BOA Editions.
Ali teaches in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine, and begining this fall, will join the faculty of Oberlin College in Ohio. If readers have any additional observations on or insights into his work, I'd love to read your comments on it.
