Kazim Ali

Kazim Ali Poems

Kazim Ali Biography

Kazim Ali (born 1971) is an American poet, novelist, essayist and professor. His most recent books are The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009) and Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press, 2009). His honors include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. His poetry and essays have been featured in many literary journals and magazines including The American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Barrow Street, Jubilat, The Iowa Review, West Branch and Massachusetts Review, and in anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2007. In 2003 he co-founded the independent press Nightboat Books, and served as its publisher from 2004 to 2007, and currently serves as a founding editor. Ali is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College and teaches in the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Maine. Previously, he taught in the Liberal Arts Department of The Culinary Institute of America, at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, and at Monroe College. He was born in the UK to parents of Indian descent, and raised in Canada and the United States. Kazim Ali received a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature from the University at Albany, and an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. In 2012 a firewall for the University of South Florida was nominated to be named after him.)

The Best Poem Of Kazim Ali

Rain

With thick strokes of ink the sky fills with rain.
Pretending to run for cover but secretly praying for more rain.

Over the echo of the water, I hear a voice saying my name.
No one in the city moves under the quick sightless rain.

The pages of my notebook soak, then curl. I've written:
'Yogis opened their mouths for hours to drink the rain.'

The sky is a bowl of dark water, rinsing your face.
The window trembles; liquid glass could shatter into rain.

I am a dark bowl, waiting to be filled.
If I open my mouth now, I could drown in the rain.

I hurry home as though someone is there waiting for me.
The night collapses into your skin. I am the rain.

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