Poems of Muslim Faith and Islamic Culture
These poems and features examine Muslim faith and Islamic culture and address important yabo体育app软件events,holidays,and occasions such as Ramadan.These poets explore a range of spiritual,literary,and political concerns from the 6th century to the present day.Some poets' voices emerge from the East (Mahmoud DarwishandSaadi Youssef),others from the West (June JordanandThomas Merton).Most turn to poetry as the ideal forum to complicate simplistic East-West divisions—learning,questioning,sparking cultural conversation,and speaking from whatNomi Stonecalls"[t]his quiet voice that is borrowed or my own.""
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Agha Shahid Ali
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.
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Mahmoud Darwish
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.
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Carol Muske-Dukes
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.
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Imru'al-qays
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.
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June Jordan
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.
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Naomi Shihab Nye
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.
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Nomi Stone
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.
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Saadi Youssef
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.""
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Fady Joudah
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Khaled Mattawa
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Adonis
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Kazim Ali
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Raza Ali Hasan
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Mahmoud Darwish
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Hayan Charara
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Fady Joudah
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Taha Muhammad Ali
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Khaled Mattawa
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From Poetry Lectures
Literary discussion featuring readings by poets Raza Ali Hasan,Ibtisam Barakat,Fady Joudah,Kazim Ali,and Khaled Mattawa.
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From Poetry Lectures
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From Poetry Lectures
Fady Joudah and Ghassan Zaqtan discuss Palestinian poetry with Ilya Kaminsky.
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From Poetry Off the Shelf
Kazim Ali discusses Agha Shahid Ali's ghazal"Tonight.""
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From NewsHour Poetry Series
Libyan-born poet Khaled Mattawa talks about life under Moammar Gadhafi and the recent crisis in his homeland.
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From NewsHour Poetry Series
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.
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From NewsHour Poetry Series
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.
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From NewsHour Poetry Series
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.
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Alex Dueben
Fady Joudah is known as much for his own verse as for his translations of Palestinian poets.
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Linh Dinh
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Annie Finch
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Daisy Fried
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Barbara Jane Reyes
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Harriet Staff
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Brian Turner