Sukun

The poetry of Kazim Ali “invites us to give ourselves over to the music of language” (Beloit Poetry Journal). Known for its lyrical and expressive language, “crafted with a controlled, delicate quality that never stops questioning, never stops teaching, and never stops astounding,” (American Poet), Ali’s work explores themes of identity, migration, and the intersections of cultural and spiritual traditions.

Sukun (Arabic for stillness or rest, as well as being a diacritic that indicates there is no vowel to pronounce following a consonant) draws from a generous selection from Ali’s six full-length collections. This remarkable volume also includes 25 astonishing new poems and an afterword by the poet. Together, they allow us to trace Ali’s passions and concerns and to take the measure of his art: the close attention to the spiritual and the visceral, and the deep language play that is at once musical and plain spoken.

AUTHOR

Kazim Ali

Born in the UK and raised in Canada, Kazim Ali is a Queer, Muslim writer who is currently professor and chair of the Department of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of 25 books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and translations, as well as the editor of five collected volumes. In 2004, he co-founded the small press Nightboat Books and served as its first publisher, and he continues to edit books with the press. Ali is also a certified yoga instructor, teaching yoga and training yoga teachers in Ramallah, Palestine for many years.

Reviews

Through Sukun Alis poems extend a hand to hold as we wait outside the door to Nowhere eager to enter together to listen and move into new collective futures
– Georgia Review

These poems display his characteristic word play and musical language in explorations of identity migration and intersections of cultural and spiritual traditions
– Prairie Books NOW

A compilation from the heart and hand of an intense lyricist explores questions of queer love spirituality and the idea of home Celebratory and poignant vulnerable and wise Ali works to honor a transnational lineage while also redrawing a genderless line of pilgrim prophet seekers

Exquisitely paced Sukun is testament to Kazim Alis distinctive accomplishment as our wandering everquesting poet As one word one sound gives birth to another so these poems trace the path from son to a finally accepting family from body to spirit from earth to cosmos

A comprehensive and stunningly beautiful collection of poems that explore the self in the world often through some form of remove such as travel or being in a new place The poems offer to lift us out of the mundane and into a sacred space or heightened brightness

A monument to the music that comes out of the woods to the music that was inside us all along This collections movements in and out of various forms countries emotional and spiritual landscapes and decades amounts in the end to a rousing attestation to lyric possibility A true gift