Poems of Muslim Faith and Islamic Culture

Ali,both a Kashmiri Muslim and U.S.National Book Award finalist,depicts ordinary activities in the intervals between salāh,the five-times-daily ritual prayer central to both Sunni and Shi'a Islam.

Palestinian exile Darwish's speaker willingly loses his sense of individuality,time,and even gravity within the ancient walls of Jerusalem as he experiences the power of the city,one of the holiest for Muslims,Jews,and Christians.

Sparked by the imagined sound of the muezzin,the person who calls the community to salāh at dawn,Muske-Dukes' traveler tries to make sense of cultural and religious phantasms,the people and rituals banished by the effects of war.

Translator Seidel describes his take on this 6th-century poem as a"cross-species salute": less straight translation than a borrowing of Imru' al-Qays'"monorhymes"and"magnificence,""Mu'allaqa"demonstrates the formal influence of canonical Arabic literature on an American author.

Jordan,who called her engagement with Middle Eastern unrest"the moral litmus test of [her] life,"both voices and critiques a typical Westerner's frustration with media reports from the Islamic world as she strives to create an alternative discourse through poetry.

Nye,who grew up in San Antonio and Jerusalem,sketches vignettes of the praying methods of Muslim shepherds,embroiderers,and pilgrims in the title poem from her first book.

In a meditation on faith and communication,Stone gives an account of a non-Muslim's attempt to observe Ramadan while living within a traditional Jewish community in Tunisia.

Iraq-born poet Youssef's speaker's strident address to America highlights the ways in which religion and conflict become bound up in one another in concepts such as"God's soldiers.""

Literary discussion featuring readings by poets Raza Ali Hasan,Ibtisam Barakat,Fady Joudah,Kazim Ali,and Khaled Mattawa.

Fady Joudah and Ghassan Zaqtan discuss Palestinian poetry with Ilya Kaminsky.

Kazim Ali discusses Agha Shahid Ali's ghazal"Tonight.""

Libyan-born poet Khaled Mattawa talks about life under Moammar Gadhafi and the recent crisis in his homeland.

For centuries,Pashtun women have traded stories,feelings and life wisdom in the form of two-line oral poems called landays.Eliza Griswold,a journalist and poet,traveled to Afghanistan to learn more about daily life there through the modern exchange of poetry.

Young Syrian-American activist Amal Kassir has lived in Syria,but grew up and now lives in the United States,where she performs slam poetry to bring attention to the suffering in the Middle East.

The works of 14th century Persian poet Hafez are iconic in Iran.Poet and scholar Dick Davis has spent years bringing the medieval writer's words to the West.

What's lost in translation doesn't hurt this poet's popularity.

Remembering June Jordan.

Is there such a thing as a"global poet"??

Fady Joudah is known as much for his own verse as for his translations of Palestinian poets.