Agha Shahid Ali (आगा शाहिद अली) (1949-2001) was an English poet of Kashmiri ancestry and upbringing. 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Kashmir (or Cashmere) may refer to: Kashmir region, the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent India, Kashmir conflict, the territorial dispute between India, Pakistan, and the China over the Kashmir region. ...

His poetry collections include The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, Rooms Are Never Finished (finalist for the National Book Award, 2001). His last book was Call Me Ishmael Tonight, a collection of English ghazals. This article is about the poetic form. ...

Ali was also a translator of Faiz Ahmed Faiz (The Rebel's Silhouette; Selected Poems) and editor (Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English). He was widely credited for helping to popularize the ghazal form in America. Faiz Faiz Ahmed Faiz (فيض احمد فيض), (1984 - 1911) is considered by many to be a poet in the great tradition of Urdu poets like Ghalib and Iqbal. ...

Ali taught at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In addition, he spent several years as a professor of English at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, a department that has, since its inception in 1812, set loose onto the world several renowned poets, most famously Ezra Pound. The MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a graduate creative writing program. ... The center of the UMass Amherst campus. ... Hamilton College is a private, independent, highly selective liberal arts college located in Clinton, New York. ... Ezra Pound in 1913. ...

During his time at Hamilton, Shahid was one of the college community's most revered and, even, adored figures. This wasn't because he was one of the Hamilton's most charasmatic personalities, though it's fair to say his energy was so powerfully magnetic, within the little world on College Hill it was second only to the beaming gold light which glowed from the steeple of the University Chapel, night after endless winter night. He wasn't idolized for being India's most famous expatriate poet, or a because of his respected body of work or friendships with New York City's literary hoi polloi. In fact, it's fair to say that only his innermost circle of English Department students (i.e. those for whom he was an Academic Advisor) were aware he was a celebrity in the midst - and mist - of Clinton, New York.

Rather, Shahid was so beloved by the Hamilton community because day in and day out - to the outside of his inner circle, at least - his eyes shone with a light that seemed completely pure, a light of unfiltered-yet-genuine intensity. It made one wonder if love should be symbolized by laser beams rather than hearts. Lasers are pure and direct and pointed, as love He radiated with life; not contentedness or just-getting-by-ness or, Gasp! - pissed-off-ness. No. He was adored because he made others feel good about themselves. (Isn't it the nature of the beast to be attracted to those who shine their light on us, making us look and feel better about our own selves?) No one confused his beaming eyes with a life devoid of seriousness, severity, or even pain. The community adored him precisely because we knew he was perfectly aware of life's evils, yet still chose to radiate purity and joy. We appreciate the brevity of this choice, envied it, perhaps, and thus respected him for it even more.

Shahid had a boisterous personality but possessed the confidence to let his work speak for itself; as all writers know, this option of passive-aggressively showing off one's talent is one of the few clearly definable perks in an otherwise often thankless profession. Everyone knew he was a genius because the evidence already existed on paper, so he didn't have to perform like a monkey in order to prove a single thing.

And yet, perform he did. For fun, for laughs, to create good times, to ease his students into serious lessons. Shahid may not have had to prove his writing talent, but he did have to prove his teaching talent, and he did so with gusto and laughs. Eighteen-year-old hockey players from Buffalo who only months earlier were skimming the Cliff Notes on Dante's Inferno in order to pass high school English were, under the Shahid's spell, internalizing and empathizing with the feelings of a gay Jew from Jersey named Allen Ginsburg. Thanks to Shahid the Nutty Professor, the introduction had been made, smooth as silk. Believing they were laughing at him more than with him as he recited Stevie Nicks songs into classical poetic form with a thick upper class Kashmir accent, teenage jocks who perhaps moments earlier had prided themselves on being cooly impenetreble were now discussing a new world, the world of the past, of ethnicity, of pansexuality.

At Hamilton, Shahid was even more renowned for his house parties than he was for his poetry - at least amongst students. Every semester he celebrated the time between the final class and the final exam = that blank line on the calendar one looks at more nervously with each passing day as the term "PROCRASTINATION!" rings louder in one's head - with an elborate Indian "feast" he prepared entirely by himself (or so it goes.)

On the Sunday afternoon before study sessions and exam week, Shahid's apartment - really the spacious ground floor of a new house designed to look like a Queen Anne Victorian and built by college administration to be on-campus faculty apartments - Shahid put the extension on his dining room table, covered it with a tablecloth, and put out, buffet style, approximately eight or ten spicy Indian meals from the region of his hometown of Kashmir.

As guests - all students of his from the semester just passed - entered his home, Shahid laid out the rules for his feast. The first rule was that every guest had to try each dish. The second was that no one was allowed to talk about class until they were leaving, at which point they could address him privately with any questions or concerns they may have. The third rule remains private to those who attended the party and, surely, will always remain as such in Shahid's honor.

The trick of this party was that each dish was spicier than the one before it - though a tray of plain yogurt was provided mid-way. In that moment when tears were springing into this guests' eyes, their noses running, their feet headed towards the door, Shahid announced casually, "Oh, by the way whoever eats the spiciest meal gets five extra points added to their final exam grade."

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Those of us blessed enough to catch - like a disease - Shahid's passion not only for words in general, but rather for discovering, unearthing, conjuring, or unmasking the one word that melds with absolute, utter precision the specific state of being the poet is trying to fill the space, like a key fits in a lock resulting from matching word to description of the human condition conjuring, unmasking, discovering, the one word which perfectly fits the intrinsic beauty he passed along his love of unveiling the call it grace. Though he was one-of-a-kind, Shahid was surely not the only person on the planet who appeared in possession of a little bit more of everything wonderful than the rest of us have.

Slight of stature, it was as if his diminuative frame could not quite contain the extraordinary energies that emanated from his core. Because it springs from a well of positivity, this characteristic should not in any way be lumped together with the evil notions associated with the Napoleanic Complex. Rather, Shahid's cup of runneth over with the qualities many Hamilton students aspired to or, in certain instances, hungered for: a brilliance so evident it was taken for granted; a cosmoplitan way of life developed organically and with such a complete absence of artifice that those who can detect such things could determine via scent that he had been unto the Manor born; a devotion to an aestethic way of life maintained with a conviction so profound as to be untouchable; a childlike demeanor and pureness of heart that lived in truth and delighted in the processes inherent in the formation of human connection; and, many will recall, a bullshit detector so precisely attuned theirs that hadn't yet entered Oenida County, much less his classroom, which he genuinely believed to be sacred, at least when he was creating paths for his students to follow him as he pontificated on the dense forest of emotionally revelatory poetry.

 was thrilling simply in it's observation to watch in action, both in the classroom and outside of it, whether a student be improvising an answer to a question not understood or an individual so desperate for Shahid's acceptance intimidating. 

Shahid was vital to the academic, artistic, and social fibre of Hamilton community. His personal truth dictated that education was dynamic, constantly changing forms and directions and expanding and contacting, and did not exist solely within the confines of the classroom. truth resulted in a spent as charisma had a deeply devoted student following that formed independent of the classroom realm. omprised mainly of particularly to astudents were keen enough to identify and deeply appreciated he was a part of in the academic and social education of students who, in many cases, had been raised a and existed amongst a population that, who had been raised to notice the very qualities with the qualities so many of , he was one of those people who changes the chat once exuded brilliance, an urbane demeanor, worldly confidence, amongst a certain contingencies of the Hamilton student body and his Introduction to Modern American Poetry class often generated a waiting list as everyone from crunchy Geology majors to law-school bound seniors majoring in Government wanted to take the class.

Those who were able to get into the class were not disappointed. Teaching introductory poetry to a maxed-out class of approximately forty seniors (at Hamilton, which consistently ranks as a nationally competitive, "most selective" college, there are no T.A.'s and graduatng classes consistently average only 425 students, a standing-room-only poetry course was both highly unusual and a testimony to the fact that Shahid's reputation as a highly-esteemed, one-of-a-kind professor preceded him within the Hamilton community.

Students who waited several semesters to get into one of Shahid's classes were not disappointed. If a student suddenly dropped out, it was typically at the request of Shahid rather than the desire of the dismissed student. (It should be noted that Shahid typically spent extra time with students whom he didn't believe were grasping the essence of his lessons, and offered the chance to rewrite major papers in order to see if the given student was, after private sessions with Shahid, able to process and recontextualize the material in a manner that he deemed highly satisfactory.)

It took only moments of watching Shahid teach to realize why a sort of cult of personality had he was one of Hamilton's most discussed and renowned professors. Put simply but descriptively (as he would have appreciated) when Shahid stood at the front of the class and began a discussion about a particular poem or poet, his excitement and profound reverence for poety seemed to emanate from the core of his being. This passion wasn't simply intellectual, though it was partially that; indeed, one of his primary objectives was to not only teach novice poetry students how to figure out what the poem is "really about;" but rather to relay to his students the excitement that evolves from applying deductive processes to each stanza, each line, each choice of word, not unlike an FBI profiler peeling back the layers of a ransome note. the reader must apply to the poet's words in order to dissect the poem and ultimately, reveal its core. and dissection of His eyes sparkled even more than usual, his mannerisms grew exagerrated, and his voice - THAT FANTASTIC VOICE with it's melodic cadences, childlike inflections, and vibrations similar to those produced by a sitar, his native culture's most deff instrument, the sitar - tone that this writer, at least, can still hear as quickly and naturally as the voice of my own mother's - be impossible to forget even if one wanted to - flowed discussed poetry, his brilliant and astute ob and it's probably (ths ithin minutes of the first class session as well as creative writing programs at University of Utah, Warren Wilson College and New York University. He died of brain cancer in December, 2001. He was laid to rest in Northampton, Massachusetts. The University of Utah (also The U or the U of U or the UU) is a public university in Salt Lake City, Utah. ... Warren Wilson College Farm Flooding after Hurricane Frances, Sept. ... New York University (NYU) is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational institution in New York City. ... Nickname: Location in Massachusetts Coordinates: Country United States State Massachusetts County Hampshire County Settled 1654 Incorporated 1656 Government  - Type Mayor-council city  - Mayor Mary Clare Higgins Area  - City  35. ...

External links

• Agha Shahid Ali at the Academy of American Poets
• Brief biography at the University of Massachusetts
• Agha Shahid Ali prize at the University of Utah
• Ali reads "The Purse-Seiner Atlantis," from the Paris Review
• Amitav Ghosh reminiscing about Agha Shahid Ali at [1]