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Kazim Ali is the author of
two books of poetry, The Far

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Mosque, put out by Alice James
Books, and The Fortieth Day,

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from BOA Editions.

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Most recently, Orange
Alert, Essays on Poetry, Art

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and the Architecture
of Silence has

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been published by University
of Michigan Press in 2010.

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He is currently an
assistant professor

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of creative writing
at Oberlin College

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and teaches in the low-residency
MFA program at the University

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of Southern Maine.

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Critics have described his
work as having unresting

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intellect and acoustic talent.

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In an interview, Ali states,
"A prayer is a form of panic."

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What strikes me most about
Ali's work is the way

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isolated moments of
narrative simultaneously

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embody the sonic
quality of prayer,

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as they reveal themselves
at a frantic pace that

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may be likened to the rapidity
of a Facebook news feed.

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Profound moments, so many
of them, that the narrative

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fragments don't seem to
be so much constructing

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a grand sense of story
as they are performing

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a bodily memory
of that narrative,

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a ghostly understanding.

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Tonight he will read a
multiplicity of genres.

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Please join me in
welcoming Kazim Ali.