I most appreciate the poet and writer Kazim Ali. He has a strong presence in poetry today and is often on Facebook. Kazim combines East and West with wisdom and humor as a gay poet from a Muslim family living and teaching in the US. His book: The Voice of Sheila Chandra speaks as a powerful, informal 40 Sonnet poem, which celebrates a retired English pop singer of Indian descent who was stricken with BMS (Burning Mouth Syndrome) in 2010 and can no longer sing. The poem is musical:
…She OM moaned in the loam Dark earth come Sheila Dame ocean dome this poem… …Who can in syllables like Sheila Chandra moan us Covered in a blanket of sound…
I am drawn to poems that crunch historical famous people—primarily women—into poetry, and bring them to us alive—like Lucille Clifton’s 24-line poem celebrating Joan of Arc: “to joan.” Alicia Ostriker catches the moment Persephone walks out of the underground in the rain, greeted by Demeter, who tells her daughter to get in the car. The poem: “Demeter to Persephone”. I often bring historical Icons like Fatima, daughter of Prophet Muhammad, into present time as in the opening lines of my poem: “in flight” in my book Fatima’s Touch.
Fatima, daughter of Khadija, is a pilot. She is trustworthy as salt. Her knowledge demystifies navigational instruments. She holds a perfect safety record. The Prophet has a seat in economy class. the airline lets him ride free…
My favorite book of the last few months is a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt—Eleanor by David Michaelis. Difficult childhood in upper Manhattan, orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she’s in a famous Roosevelt family. She has a brief exit from the family to a boarding school in Europe. There she receives strong guidance from a mentor. She enters marriage with her fifth cousin, Franklin Roosevelt, who becomes the thirty-second US President “FDR.” The spotlight on her increases over their decades of marriage, while her wisdom and influence grows, and she evolves into a powerful humanitarian guide, influencing the direction America is going. The long-ago-past slides page by page into the mid mid-twentieth century—and carries us along. A page turner.