Kazim Ali is the author of two books of poetry, The Far
Mosque, put out by Alice James Books, and The Fortieth Day,
from BOA Editions.
Most recently, Orange Alert, Essays on Poetry, Art
and the Architecture of Silence has
been published by University of Michigan Press in 2010.
He is currently an assistant professor
of creative writing at Oberlin College
and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at the University
of Southern Maine.
Critics have described his work as having unresting
intellect and acoustic talent.
In an interview, Ali states, "A prayer is a form of panic."
What strikes me most about Ali's work is the way
isolated moments of narrative simultaneously
embody the sonic quality of prayer,
as they reveal themselves at a frantic pace that
may be likened to the rapidity of a Facebook news feed.
Profound moments, so many of them, that the narrative
fragments don't seem to be so much constructing
a grand sense of story as they are performing
a bodily memory of that narrative,
a ghostly understanding.
Tonight he will read a multiplicity of genres.
Please join me in welcoming Kazim Ali.