Agha Shahid Ali

Agha Shahid Ali (Kashmiri: आग़ा शाहिद अली, ; February 4, 1949, New Delhi, India - 8 December 2001, Amherst, Massachusetts) was a Kashmiri American poet. His poetry collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, 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. His poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and many other anthologies.

Life
In India, Agha Shahid Ali was educated at the University of Kashmir and the University of Delhi. In the United States of America, he earned a Ph.D. in English from Pennsylvania State University in 1984, and an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona in 1985. He held teaching positions at nine universities and colleges in India and the United States.

Ali was also a translator of the Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz (The Rebel's Silhouette; Selected Poems ), and was the editor for the Middle East and Central Asia segment of Jeffery Paine's _Poetry of Our World_.

Ali taught at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, at the MFA Writing Seminars at Bennington College as well as at creative writing programs at University of Utah, Baruch College, Warren Wilson College, Hamilton College and New York University. The accalimed Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie was his student.

Amitav Ghosh, a renowned English author and Ali's close friend wrote about him after his death in 'The Ghat of the Only World'.

James Merrill, an American Poet, had a very significant impact on Agha Shahid Ali's poetry.

Being of Kashmiri ethnicity, Ali, in regards to Jammu and Kashmir and the Kashmir conflict, stated that "ideally the best solution would be absolute autonomy within the Indian Union in the broadest sense." However he went on to state that possibly, such a solution was probably no longer possible, given the actions of the Indian state in Kashmir and the fact that militant groups would never accept the 'autonomy' solution. (Later he was a staunch supporter of Kashmir freedom struggle.- Reference?) He expressed his love and concern for his people in The county without A post office, written in the backdrop of the Kashmir conflict.

He died peacefully, in his sleep, of brain cancer in December, 2001. He was laid to rest in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Writing
Through his work with poetry teaching, and as the compiler of the volume Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English, he was widely credited for helping to popularize the ghazal as a poetic form in English today.

Recognition
The University of Utah Press awards the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize annually "in memory of a celebrated poet and beloved teacher".