Agha Shahid Ali
Agha Shahid Ali (Kashmiri: आग़ा शाहिद अली, آغا شاہِد علی; February 4, 1949, New Delhi, India - 8 December 2001,2:00 AM Amherst, Massachusetts) was a Kashmiri American poet.[1][2] His poetry collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, Rooms Are Never Finished (finalist for the National Book Award, 2001). His last book was Call Me Ishmael Tonight, a collection of English ghazals. His poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and many other anthologies.
In India, Agha Shahid Ali was educated at the University of Kashmir and the University of Delhi.[1] In the United States of America, he earned a Ph.D. in English from Pennsylvania State University in 1984, and an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona in 1985.[1] He held teaching positions at nine universities and colleges in India and the United States.[1]
Ali was also a translator of the Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz (The Rebel's Silhouette; Selected Poems[3]), and was the editor for the Middle East and Central Asia segment of Jeffery Paine's _Poetry of Our World_.[4]
Through his work with poetry teaching, and as the compiler of the volume Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English, he was widely credited for helping to popularize the ghazal form as a poetic genre in English today.
Ali taught at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at University of Massachusetts Amherst, at the MFA Writing Seminars at Bennington College as well as at creative writing programs at University of Utah, Baruch College, Warren Wilson College, Hamilton College and New York University. The accalimed Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie was his student. He died peacefully, in his sleep, of brain cancer in December, 2001. He was buried in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Amitav Ghosh, a renowned English author and Ali's close friend wrote about him after his death in 'The Ghat of the Only World'.
The University of Utah Press awards the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize annually "in memory of a celebrated poet and beloved teacher".[5]
James Merrill, an American Poet, had a very significant impact on Agha Shahid Ali's poetry.
Being of Kashmiri ethnicity, Ali, in regards to Jammu and Kashmir and the Kashmir conflict, stated that "ideally the best solution would be absolute autonomy within the Indian Union in the broadest sense." However he went on to state that possibly, such a solution was probably no longer possible, given the actions of the Indian state in Kashmir and the fact that militant groups would never accept the 'autonomy' solution. (Later he was a staunch supporter of Kashmir freedom struggle.- Reference?) He expressed his love and concern for his people in The county without A post office, written in the backdrop of the Kashmir conflict.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d "A Tribute to Agha Shahid Ali". Jacket Magazine. http://jacketmagazine.com/18/ali.html. Retrieved 2010–01–02. "Beauty always raises the stakes.
Don’t apologize darling-guilt, it’s such a Puritan thing to do.
I never apologize, shameless little Indian that I am. — Agha Shahid Ali" - ^ An interethnic companion to Asian American literature. Cambridge University Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=6v659OPjoKIC&pg=PA194&dq=agha+shahid+ali+indian+american#v=onepage&q=agha%20shahid%20ali%20indian%20american&f=false. Retrieved 2010–01–02. "Contemporary South Asian American writers belong primarily to this middle and upper class: Indo-American Agha Shahid Ali, Meena Alexander, Bharati Mukherjee, Vikram Seth, Pakistani American Sara Suleria, Javaid Qazi, Indo-Canadian Rohinton Mistry, Uma Parameswaran, Sri Lankan Canadian Michael Ondaatje, and Indo-Guyanese Canadian Cyril Dabydeen, among others."
- ^ Book Excerptise:Rebel's Silhouette (extended extracts and literary history)
- ^ Poetry of Our World (excerpts)
- ^ http://www.uofupress.com/portal/site/uofupress/menuitem.e68c1caf70ae8b401989dd10c1e916b9/?vgnextoid=cf31aa421891f110VgnVCM1000001c9e619bRCRD
- ^ "'The Ghat Of The Only World': Agha Shahid Ali in Brooklyn". Outlook. http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?216239. Retrieved 2010–01–02.
[edit] External links
- Agha Shahid Ali at the Academy of American Poets
- Brief biography at the University of Massachusetts
- Agha Shahid Ali prize at the University of Utah Press
- Ali reads "The Purse-Seiner Atlantis," from the Paris Review
- Amitav Ghosh reminiscing about Agha Shahid Ali at [1]
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