麻豆视频

By Raza Ali Hasan, instructor of English

鈥淥nce at home in Pakistan, now nested in Colorado, Ali Hasan writes in newsreel cuneiform. His poetry tastes of fast foods and ancient feasts, his language is spiced with moral and political ginger. Or you might say his proven experimental poetry written out of necessity allows him to survive in the academy of broken hearts and letters. His poetry and learning come out of texts and battles, lost and won, and march from state to state. Somehow, mysteriously, Ali Hasan鈥檚 poetry is informed by love he never speaks of. How can an eagle sing like a nightingale? How can a raptor protect the reader with his wing?鈥�

鈥擲tanley Moss

鈥淭he Pakistani-American poet Raza Ali Hasan鈥檚 terse lyrics, written with听elegant slant rhymes, survey an unprecedented landscape of space-time. In听compressed verses, they rhyme the US-inspired deaths of leaders like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Salvador Allende with mythic episodes from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. In the tradition of Mughal painting, he miniaturizes the violence of the 鈥榲iolent American century,鈥� contemplating it with the ironic composure of an Auden or Cavafy heir. And he hints at more, as when he walks out of Charlton Heston鈥檚 Ben Hur to a rainy U.S. city, 鈥渂lurry with wonder struck poplars.鈥�

鈥擯eter Dale Scott

Publication date: 2015