Kazim Ali

Poet, editor, and prose writer Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom to Muslim parents of Indian descent and has lived transnationally in the United States, Canada, India, France, and the Middle East. He earned his BA and MA from the University at Albany, SUNY and his MFA from New York University.

Ali’s poetry collections include Sukun (Wesleyan University Press, 2023), The Voice of Sheila Chandra (Alice James Books, 2020), Inquisition (Wesleyan, 2018), Sky Ward (Wesleyan, 2013), The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008), and The Far Mosque (Alice James Books, 2005), which won Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award.

Ali’s prose includes Black Buffalo Woman: An Introduction to the Poetry and Poetics of Lucille Clifton (BOA Editions, 2024), Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water (Milkweed Editions, 2021), winner of the Banff Mountain Book Award in Environmental Literature, Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies (Tupelo Press, 2018), Anaïs Nin: An Unprofessional Study (Agape Editions, 2017), Resident Alien: On Border-crossing and the Undocumented Divine (University of Michigan Press, 2015), The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009), and Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan, 2009). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (BlazeVOX, 2005), and the experimental novel, written as a musical score, The Secret Room: A String Quartet (Kaya Press, 2017). He translated Marguerite Duras’s Abahn Sabana David (Open Letter Books, 2016) and When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me by Ananda Devi (Phoneme Media, 2022).

In 2004 Ali co-founded Nightboat Books and served as the press’s publisher until 2007. He has received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and his poetry has been featured in Best American Poetry. Ali has been a regular columnist for the American Poetry Review and a contributing editor for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Writer’s Chronicle. He is a former member of the Cocoon Theatre Modern Dance Company.

Ali has taught at Oberlin College, Davidson College, St. Mary's College of California, Naropa University, and the low-residency Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. He is currently a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, San Diego.