Kazim Ali is a multi-genre author, having published multiple poetry books, fictional novels, and books of nonfiction. Ali stands at an intersection of identities. As the child of Indian parents, who grew up living transnationally in the UK, Canada, India, and later France and the Middle East, he possesses a firsthand perspective on cultural and ethnic interplay. Ali's identifications as gay and Muslim also contribute to his unique perspective as a writer. He claims this complex interrelation of identity led to him becoming “someone who questioned established political, social, and gender norms” (Ali, 40). In the anthology commentary included with the poem “Ramadan,” Ali is quoted as saying he sees poetry as a way “that the individual body can express its own personhood and value in the face of faceless systems” (315).

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, 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, 33).

• 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, 37).

• 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, 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.

In Kazim Ali's Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cites, he writes about his time in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

During an Interlochen Review interview Q & A, he expanded on this connection to PA and explained how Bright Felon was written,

</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.” <blockquote>

“Yeah, well there are three types of God in Bright Felon. There’s God with a lowercase ‘g’, then there’s G-D, and there’s God with an uppercase ‘G’. When were going to press, the press said “We should make these all the same, right?” and I replied with “No, no, no. They’re three different words, they mean three different things, and each time they appear in a different way.” I’ll tell you this, “G-D” is when I’m referring to actual God, and when I used “God” I was referring to how human people define whatever God might be. And then when I use “god” lowercase it more in the abstract and neutral dictionary definition of that word. “G-D” is spelled in the Jewish religion with a hyphen to acknowledge the fact that you know nothing about God; it’s a mystery and whenever people start defining it, or explaining it, or “knowing” what it means, it’s always bad news, because someone always gets hurt in the process.”

Ali, Kazim. “‘Carlisle’: Kazim Ali - February 24, 2011.” The University of Arizona Poetry Center, 24 Feb. 2011, voca.arizona.edu/track/id/57307.

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.

Holden, Nim, et al. “Kazim Ali.” The Interlochen Review, 5 Feb. 2015, www.interlochenreview.org/kazim-ali.

“Ramadan Information Sheet”// ing//, https://ing.org/resources/for-all-groups/calendar-of-important-islamic-dates/ramadan-information-sheet/