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| ==== Faith ==== | ==== Faith ==== |
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| Ali's faith has been a central influence on his writing. In fact, he professes that the verses of the Qu'ran that his father whispered in his ears as a baby were his first introduction to poetry (Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, 36). Yet, Ali forges his own path to faith, balancing the traditional with his own sense of the sacred, stating, "I'd rather be wandering in a trance through the streets of a busy city, peeling an orange and whispering to the universe than sitting in a pew listening to a sermon or kneeling on a rug reciting chapters" (Ali, 34). Ali claims that the questions religion poses are questions not only about God but about how people can live together as individuals in community (Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, 33). | Ali's faith has been a central influence on his writing. In fact, he professes that the verses of the Qu'ran that his father whispered in his ears as a baby were his first introduction to poetry ((Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, 36)). Yet, Ali forges his own path to faith, balancing the traditional with his own sense of the sacred, stating, "I'd rather be wandering in a trance through the streets of a busy city, peeling an orange and whispering to the universe than sitting in a pew listening to a sermon or kneeling on a rug reciting chapters" ((Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, 34)). Ali claims that the questions religion poses are questions not only about God but about how people can live together as individuals in community ((Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, 33)). |
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| ===== Themes ===== | ===== Themes ===== |
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| * **Religion**- Reflections on God and spiritual ritual are central themes in much of Kazim Ali's poetry, and certainly in the poem "Ramadan." Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims, where fasting takes place during the hours of sunlight, accompanied by increased prayer and reading of the Qur'an. This period of concentrated spiritual concentration, commemorates the revelation of the Qur'an and is intended to serve "as a means of drawing closer to God and cultivating self-control, gratitude, and compassion for those less fortunate" (Ramadan). Ali does follow the practice of fasting during Ramadan and describes the ritual as both solitary and communal. Although people individually fast, there is an awareness of those nearby and across the world in solidarity (Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, 37). | * **Religion**- Reflections on God and spiritual ritual are central themes in much of Kazim Ali's poetry, and certainly in the poem "Ramadan." Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims, where fasting takes place during the hours of sunlight, accompanied by increased prayer and reading of the Qur'an. This period of concentrated spiritual concentration, commemorates the revelation of the Qur'an and is intended to serve "as a means of drawing closer to God and cultivating self-control, gratitude, and compassion for those less fortunate" (("Ramadan Information Sheet"// ing//, https://ing.org/resources/for-all-groups/calendar-of-important-islamic-dates/ramadan-information-sheet/)). Ali does follow the practice of fasting during Ramadan and describes the ritual as both solitary and communal. Although people individually fast, there is an awareness of those nearby and across the world in solidarity ((Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, 37)). |
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| * **The Unknown**- Part of the reason Ali chose to stop writing explicitly about God was his desire to avoid turning presumptions into certainty. Ali prefers to hold space of the unknown in his work. Significantly, Ali has been quoted as saying, "If you talk all the time about something, you stop knowing anything about it" (Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, 37). This theme of embracing uncertainty is clear in the poignant closing stanza of "Ramadan." "You are never going to know which night's mouth is sacredly reciting/and which night's recitation is secretly mere wind--." These lines might be interpreted as a call to be aware of and grateful for each moment for there is a chance it could be imbued with the holy. | * **The Unknown**- Part of the reason Ali chose to stop writing explicitly about God was his desire to avoid turning presumptions into certainty. Ali prefers to hold space of the unknown in his work. Significantly, Ali has been quoted as saying, "If you talk all the time about something, you stop knowing anything about it" ((Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, 37)). This theme of embracing uncertainty is clear in the poignant closing stanza of "Ramadan." "You are never going to know which night's mouth is sacredly reciting/and which night's recitation is secretly mere wind--." These lines might be interpreted as a call to be aware of and grateful for each moment for there is a chance it could be imbued with the holy. |
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| ===== Connection to Carlisle ===== | ===== Connection to Carlisle ===== |
| Why is it I would want go to Mecca. Because there a stone fell from the sky. | Why is it I would want go to Mecca. Because there a stone fell from the sky. |
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| But more importantly than that small thing. That is where a mother refused to believe...." (Ali 11-12). | But more importantly than that small thing. That is where a mother refused to believe...." ((Ali, Kazim. Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities. Wesleyan Univ Press, 2012, 11-12)). |
| </poem> | </poem> |
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| <blockquote> | <blockquote> |
| "I wrote the whole book in Carlisle, because I was teaching at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania but living in New York City. So I was doing this crazy back and forth between Marble Hill and Carlisle at the same time, but most of that book I wrote in Carlisle. Some of the sections I took from journals that I kept—some of the Cairo section was taken from a journal, most of the Washington D.C. section of the book was taken from my journals—and some of it was written in the immediate, but most was written after in retrospective. The only exception was the epilogue, which was about Barcelona and actually written there in Barcelona." | "I wrote the whole book in Carlisle, because I was teaching at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania but living in New York City. So I was doing this crazy back and forth between Marble Hill and Carlisle at the same time, but most of that book I wrote in Carlisle. Some of the sections I took from journals that I kept—some of the Cairo section was taken from a journal, most of the Washington D.C. section of the book was taken from my journals—and some of it was written in the immediate, but most was written after in retrospective. The only exception was the epilogue, which was about Barcelona and actually written there in Barcelona." ((Holden, Nim, et al. “Kazim Ali.” The Interlochen Review, 5 Feb. 2015, www.interlochenreview.org/kazim-ali.)) |
| </blockquote> | </blockquote> |
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| | {{tag>Poetry Sacred USA English}} |
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| ====== Works Cited ====== | |
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| Ali, Kazim. Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities. Wesleyan Univ Press, 2012. | |
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| Ali, Kazim. “‘Carlisle’: Kazim Ali - February 24, 2011.” The University of Arizona Poetry Center, 24 Feb. 2011, voca.arizona.edu/track/id/57307. | |
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| Ali, Kazim. "Doubt and Seeking." //Poets Talk about Faith: a God in the House//, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012, pp. 32-45. | |
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| Holden, Nim, et al. “Kazim Ali.” The Interlochen Review, 5 Feb. 2015, www.interlochenreview.org/kazim-ali. | |
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| "Ramadan Information Sheet"// ing//, https://ing.org/resources/for-all-groups/calendar-of-important-islamic-dates/ramadan-information-sheet/ | |
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