The Fortieth Day (American Poets Continuum) [Paperback]

Kazim Ali (Author)

Book Description

Series: American Poets Continuum | Publication Date: May 1, 2008

From the Bible to the Quaraan, the fortieth day symbolizes the last moment before deliverance, a moment in time when a supplicant or prophet or stormbeaten passenger knows there is no state “after,” but finally accepts the present state as a permanent one.

In The Fortieth Day, Kazim Ali follows the fractured narratives and moving lyrics of his debut collection, The Far Mosque, with a deeply spiritual and meditative book exploring the rhetoric of prayer.

Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom and raised in an Islamic household. He holds degrees from the University at Albany and New York University. He lives in Oberlin, Ohio.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ali's second collection continues the project he began in his debut, The Far Mosque (2005). Through these associative and sometimes disjunctive lyrics, Ali explores Eastern religions—Islam, Hinduism—as well as his relationship with a more personalized God who represents the unknown while still providing a sense of belonging in the world. In Afternoon Prayer, Ali asks, God, a curt question or a curtain. In the opening, Lostness, Ali describes his particular notion of deity—dear God of blankness I pray to dear unerasable—and then asks, how could I live without You if I were ever given answers; later, God is equated with the sparseness of daily life: dear afternoon God dear evening God my lonely world. Sometimes Ali arrives at mysterious, striking assertions: A person is only a metaphor for the place he wants to go; elsewhere, one finds well-rendered images: the ocean will receive itself / opening its green pages to glass and sand. A lack of mooring in the physical world makes some poems a bit slight. Nonetheless, Ali eloquently draws attention to the strange, dislocating home we make in human experience, in which you are being whipped // around the galaxy's center / at 25 million miles a second. (May)
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About the Author

Kazim Ali's poetry has recently appeared in jubilat, Barrow Street, The American Poetry Review, and Best American Poetry 2007. An e-chapbook "River Road" appeared on The Drunken Boat, and another long sequence appeared in Bridges: a Journal of Jewish Feminist Literature. His books are The Far Mosque (Alice James), and the novel Quinn's Passage (BlazeVox).

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd. (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934414042
• ISBN-13: 978-1934414040
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #449,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kazim Ali was born in the UK to parents of Indian descent. With his family he emigrated to Canada and then the US where he was raised in an Islamic household. He then attended the University at Albany, receiving a BA and an MA in English. Following his graduation, Kazim worked full time as an organizer for a state-wide organization devoted to advocating for greater access to public higher education, funding for the SUNY system, and increased need-based grant aid for students. Following four years of full time organizing and political activity, Kazim returned to his home in the Western New York area and taught in the English Department of Monroe Community College and served as a writer-in-residence at the Just Buffalo Literary Center. Kazim Ali's work has been published in various national journals including jubilat, Barrow Street, The American Poetry Review, and in the Best American Poetry 2007. His first book of poetry, The Far Mosque,' was published by Alice James Books in 2005. Kazim is also the author of a novel, Quinn's Passage,' published by BlazeVox Books. He is founding editor of Nightboat Books.