Agha Shahid Ali
Agha Shahid Ali was a renowned poet born in New Delhi, India, who navigated a rich tapestry of cultural influences throughout his life. Fluent in Urdu, Kashmiri, and English, he identified primarily as an English writer, drawing upon the stories and myths of both Eastern and Western traditions. Ali pursued higher education in English literature, earning degrees from the University of Kashmir, the University of Delhi, and Pennsylvania State University, where he later published his dissertation on T.S. Eliot. His career in academia included positions at several prestigious institutions, culminating in his role as an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Ali's poetry often reflects his experiences of displacement and the turmoil of his war-torn homeland, particularly through the lens of the traditional Arabic poetic form known as the ghazal, which he helped popularize in America. His work is marked by deep explorations of loss, personal identity, and emotional connections to history, as exemplified in his notable collection, "The Country Without a Post Office." Despite facing his own battle with brain cancer, which he poignantly addressed in his last collection, "Rooms Are Never Finished," Ali left behind a significant legacy in contemporary poetry. He received numerous accolades for his contributions to literature, establishing a respected niche for himself as a poet who bridged cultures and examined the complexities of human experience.
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Agha Shahid Ali
Writer
- Born: February 4, 1949
- Birthplace: New Dehli, India
- Died: December 8, 2001
- Place of death: Amherst, Massachusetts
Biography
Born in New Delhi, India, Agha Shahid Ali grew up in a culturally and intellectually rich environment. Fluent in Urdu, Kashmiri, and English, his first language was Urdu, but he always considered himself a writer of English. His, parents, educated in the United States, introduced him to stories, myths, and legends of both Eastern and Western cultures. While his own religion was Islam, he was intimately acquainted with Hindu beliefs and was educated in an Irish Catholic school.
Ali received his B.A. at the University of Kashmir, Srinagar, in 1968 and M.A. in English literature from the University of Delhi in 1970. He earned another M.A. in 1981 and Ph.D. in 1984 from the Pennsylvania State University. His dissertation, T. S. Eliot as Editor, was later published by the University of Michigan Research Press in 1986. The tight job market and his longing to see the West prompted him to move to Arizona and earn an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 1985. As a graduate student, Ali worked as a lecturer, instructor, and graduate assistant. In 1985, he began teaching full time as assistant professor of English and creative writing at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. In 1993, he moved to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as associate professor of English in the M.F.A. program. In the spring of 1989, he was visiting professor of creative writing at State University of New York, Binghamton.
His poetry reflects his multicultural background, his displacement, his war-torn home, and the influence of Eastern and Western myths, legends, and classic and contemporary literatures. While he employs many poetic forms, Ali became associated with the ghazal, an Arabic lyric form having an exact and intricate rhyme and meter scheme, which he popularized. Through his work in editing an anthology of ghazals, and in translating the The Rebel’s Silhouette, by the Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ali introduced important Arabic writers to American audiences.
Ali counted many contemporary poets as close friends, especially James Merrill, whose advice and friendship he acknowledged in the dedication of The Country Without a Post Office, a collection describing war-ravaged Kashmir. Though he often writes about loss, Ali also examines the self, articulating the relationship of loss to one’s emotional life. His poems present complex explorations of a person’s connections to history. Ali wrote about the loss of his mother to brain cancer, the disease that would take his own life, in his final volume of poems, Rooms Are Never Finished, published in November, 2001, one month before his death.
Many awards attest to his talents and accomplishments. He received the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference scholarship in 1982 and 1983, the Pennsylvania Council on Arts fellowship in 1983, the Ingram Merrill Foundation fellowship in 1987, and the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in 1993. Rooms Are Never Finished was a finalist for the National Book Award for poetry in 2001. In ruminating on and reclaiming loss through poetry, and in introducing and making the ghazal his own, Ali attained a significant niche in contemporary poetry.