Abdul Ali is a father, teacher, and poet currently based in Baltimore, Maryland, where he lives with his daughter. He is from New York City by way of Washington, D.C. Ali’s first book, Trouble Sleeping, won the 2014 New Issues Poetry Prize and was published in 2015 by New Issues Press. In Trouble Sleeping Ali explores his past, and in doing so, he connects his memories of being a young black male in New York City to modern day experiences. Trouble Sleeping also conflates the notion of “staying woke” with the author’s own insomnia. Common themes and motifs throughout his work include police brutality, social justice, ars poetica, mental illness, pop culture, and black culture.
After getting his M.F.A. from American University, Ali worked as a professor at Towson University. Currently, he teaches at Bryn Mawr, a private school in Roland Park. To add to this impressive resume, Ali’s works have been featured in Gargoyle, Gathering of Tribes, National Public Radio, New Contrast (South Africa), The Atlantic, Full Moon on K Street: Poems about Washington D.C., and elsewhere. He has received fellowships, awards, and grants from American University, .DC. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the Folio Literary Journal.
Afiya Ervin and Mia Capobianco, students in Dora Malech’s “Poetry & Social Justice” class at the Johns Hopkins University, caught up with Ali at Red Emma’s Bookstore and Coffeehouse to discuss poetry, activism, and all things in between.
Abdul Ali will be reading his poems on April 20, 2016 at Creative Alliance in Highlandtown at 7:30 PM as a part of the Open Circle Reading Series, and at Red Emma’s on April 28, 2016 at 7:30 PM with Ailish Hopper.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How did you become a writer and an activist?
I grew up in a family where it was very typical to talk about politics over dinner. And my grandparents weren’t the type of people to use euphemisms; they were very direct. Just to give you a little context, I was growing up in the 90’s, when Rodney King was a very publicized thing. As a young person, I had a lot of questions. This is when New York City’s first black mayor was running, and that was this great “black hope” kind of moment. And then there were a slew of police brutality events that kind of politicized me as a younger person.
I went to high school in Manhattan, and I was curious about where the artists hung out. The NYU campus, the whole West Village, was very nourishing for me--to see public demonstrations, a lot of art shows. That was kind of how I chipped my teeth in [terms of] being a socially conscious citizen, and then the writing came later.
Did you willingly learn about social justice issues or was the knowledge forced onto you?
I don’t know that it was forced on me, and I don’t know that I willingly learned about it; I was sort of born into it. The great actress Ruby Dee always says, “I didn’t join the Civil Rights Movement; I was born into it.” I like that idea. I knew that being born an American, but also in a black body and male, meant certain things. That meant I would be more vulnerable in terms of getting a good education, in terms of everything. Of course I didn’t know this then, but I started seeing those divides. Being raised by depression-era-raised black folks, this idea of you having to be three times as good to get half as much, was very much indelibly printed in my young imagination.
What role do you think poetry plays in society today?
I think poetry is at the forefront of social movements. I am tutoring a homeschooled teenager on the side, and he is bringing all of this hip hop music that is basically poetry set to a beat, that is talking about Black Lives Matter, is talking about all this stuff. And I asked him, “Wow, you actually get all of these references? Forty acres and a mule and all that?” And he said, “Yeah, I get it. I don’t know if all of my friends get it, but I get it.”
I think poetry inhabits this special place, where I don’t know if it’s everything, but it’s certainly the beginning of something. We are naturally, as human beings, attracted to good stories. We’re attracted to rhythm. We remember rhyme. And I think, especially with popular music, you see that a lot. In terms of what I’m doing, it’s hard for me to say how much of an impact it has, because I feel that my audience is much smaller than a hip hop artist who has YouTube and sells millions of albums. Mine is more grass roots.
I think that on a smaller scale, I’m able to interact with readers and make myself available in situations like these, so that folks get what my project is. And then I’m a teacher, and I think that compliments my work as a writer, because I’m supporting all kinds of voices and all kinds of projects--so it’s this symbiosis.
In terms of what role poetry plays in society today, who has access to poetry and who doesn't? Do you think that pop culture makes poetry more accessible or offers different interpretations?
I think the question of literacy is a big one. What I try to do is use my voice as an instrument, so that as I’m reading, someone who may never be interested in buying a poetry book hopefully might say “I really like how you read that poem.” I feel that it’s my job to make [a poem] as interesting as I possibly can in terms of the presentation. But again, the platform that I’m operating on at the moment, is very much steeped in the academy.
I do collaborations. I did get to read with a band a couple of times, and that was really fun. As opportunities present themselves, I will continue to collaborate because I really love this idea of breaking down walls. I don’t want someone to [have to] be in an M.F.A. program; I don’t want that to be the prerequisite to know my work.
In the poem “Elegy,” after Troy Davis was killed, there was a group of mostly white protesters, and only the mother of Troy Davis cried. Do you think that there is a disconnect between the Black community and the social justice issues that affect us?
I don’t know if there’s a disconnect in terms of knowledge, but I do believe there may be a disconnect in terms of emotional impact. I know that in some ways, it may be fashionable to wear a Black Lives Matter tee shirt, but to actually be the mother who lost a son is a completely different experience. So I think, yes and no. Obviously experiencing these things is very different than writing policy or trying to get elected. We’ve seen Black Lives Matter being used as a bargaining chip to get in good with the black community.
Going back to the idea of things being fashionable, such as appropriating the Black Lives Matter movement in order to position yourself as progressive. I see that a lot on college campuses, but then the action piece is kind of lost. In your opinion, what is the status of campus activism?
I think young people really are at the front lines in terms of getting the message out that this is not okay. There’s also this feeling of “Oh my God, is this the world I’m going to enter?” It’s really troubling.
I remember when the riots broke out, I was very conflicted because on the one hand, I wanted to be with my students demonstrating. On the other, I’m a father and I’m a black man. I can’t really risk being arrested, because how would that impact my daughter? Young people might have less to lose and everything to gain. They haven’t really entered the professional world yet, so they don’t have to worry about pissing anyone off. For someone who is on contract at a job, and then being a person of color, you’re automatically in the minority and under a microscope. You have to think about it.
But as I get older I realize that you can fight in different ways. I think that young people on college campuses may have their sphere of influence. Those of us who have jobs, we have a different sphere of influence. I think me directly connecting with black men, or any young men, is an important thing, because hopefully they will walk away from that relationship woke. They can then live their lives accordingly. That is a different kind of fight. That is a different kind of work.
You tweeted a quote by James Baldwin, “Artists are here to disturb the peace.” Can you elaborate on that? Or tell us how that is relevant to your writing practices today?
I do believe that in order for change to happen, the stakes have to be real. As an artist, I don’t want to write about something I don’t feel vested in. I don’t know that my work disturbs the peace, but I certainly don’t want to write from a place of being comfortable… Whether that is talking about something personal or taboo or high stakes. Just look at the big splash that Ta-Nehisi Coates has made writing a letter to his son in the tradition of James Baldwin.
You seem to sometimes write what people might call “confessional” poetry, or at least poetry that deals with intensely personal subject matter. What is your process like when you write about personal subjects? Do you have to distance yourself from the subject matter, or revisit those experiences to become more intimately familiar with them? How does that work?
I would sort of separate myself from the confessional poets, and I would say that mine is more aligned with poetry of witness, whether these are personal moments or public moments. There is some poetry I have read where there seems to be no real point to it; it’s just catharsis. I would like to think that my work is more like taking out a camera and shooting something from a unique angle to get at a subject in interesting ways. It’s the little details, the particulars, and you get at the universal through the particulars.
I would see a lot of my work as ekphrasis. I’m always interested in the visual arts: What do I see? How do I relate that in a poem? I’m dealing with insomnia, so how do I translate that? How do I give the reader a sense of restlessness? How do I use my tools as a writer to give that effect? That was one of my challenges.
Can you talk a little bit about the forms you use and how you use them?
There is a lot of privileging of traditional forms. [In Trouble Sleeping], I wanted to give myself permission to experiment and to find an organic form for each poem because they are all different. The idea that free verse is easier than using traditional forms--I would reject that. How do you write improvisation into a poem? You can’t! You have to do a lot of trusting your craft to [write free verse]. And then the reading of the poem is a completely other experience.
I would say jazz is definitely a large influence, and the visual arts, cinema and photography. The idea of the book being sort of like a short film--these were things that came to me as I realized what my obsessions were. Using memory as the actual film, the content.
It seems that Robert Hayden has had a big influence on your work. When did you first encounter Hayden’s work? How has it affected you? And what other figures, literary or otherwise, have made an impression?
Everybody knows “Those Winter Sundays,” but it was reading Hayden, and seeing how experimental he was. He has this poem called “[American Journal],” where he did all this work with spacing, and it’s weird! It’s like the speaker is an extra terrestrial coming to America and is noticing all these strange habits. I really love the experiments of Robert Hayden. I really love the surrealism of Robert Hayden, and I really love that he didn’t have to beat you over the head with politics. It’s first a poem, and maybe it has implications, maybe it’s pointing to social justice or the political.
Martha Collins, I really love her work. But a lot of [Trouble Sleeping] was me trusting my own voice. The first book is so often a debut, is you trying to make room on the bookshelf for yourself. I really wanted to get to a place where I could be comfortable making those decisions, which wasn’t easy to do. There was a lot of doubt that I struggled with.
Can you talk a little bit about how jazz’s influence has specifically manifested itself in your work?
When I wrote the poem “Elegy” for Troy Davis, I was imagining a jazz solo. How do you talk about something sad, but not just to be sad? Some poems that are not in [Trouble Sleeping] deal with jazz more specifically--improvisation, Charlie Parker. I am very interested in these tragic figures, who made this amazing music, but their personal lives were really crazy. I love that jazz can communicate emotion without words, and I feel that although we use words to write poetry, the music between the words--that is what I’m interested in. How do I relay a certain emotion if I enjamb with a certain word, or if I break the line or the stanza in a certain way? All of this is very interesting to me.
What advice would you give your younger self?
I would say watch films, read, talk to people, but most importantly live. That thing that you really want to do but you’re afraid to do--try it. I think that is what makes you who you are supposed to be, and who you are.
What do you want to do in the future?
I want to write the best work that I can, that I can be proud of, that my daughter can be proud of, that will impact people's lives. I’d also like to show my daughter that you can go after your dreams and that life is yours to live. Don’t ever let anyone tell you, “No, you’ll never make a living. You can never do that.” People have been creating for a very long time. Those who must create will find a way to do it.
Out of this book, which was your favorite poem to write?
That’s like asking me what’s my favorite digit out of all my fingers and toes. I don’t know if I can answer my favorite, but I can maybe tell you which was the most difficult--“On passing.” There is the idea of passing--passing for white, passing for black--and also comparing myself with my father, who had a very different experience from myself. Have you ever read the Seamus Heaney poem “Digging?” There’s this feeling of inadequacy. I felt that very much. My father lived a very hard life. Not to say that I lived in a Bel Air mansion or anything like that, but my life had a very different trajectory. It was very clear that I was going to be college educated when I was young. It was very clear that I would be able to move in different circles. I think that was a really hard poem to write, and I’m glad that it made it in there. I had to shut off all the outside noise and dig in, and I think that’s where we get back to high stakes. Are you poet enough to tell the truth even if it puts you in an unpopular, unfavorable light? That is a hard thing to do. Are you able to be vulnerable, essentially? I don’t read it often. I might read it for these upcoming events.
After getting his M.F.A. from American University, Ali worked as a professor at Towson University. Currently, he teaches at Bryn Mawr, a private school in Roland Park. To add to this impressive resume, Ali’s works have been featured in Gargoyle, Gathering of Tribes, National Public Radio, New Contrast (South Africa), The Atlantic, Full Moon on K Street: Poems about Washington D.C., and elsewhere. He has received fellowships, awards, and grants from American University, .DC. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the Folio Literary Journal.
Afiya Ervin and Mia Capobianco, students in Dora Malech’s “Poetry & Social Justice” class at the Johns Hopkins University, caught up with Ali at Red Emma’s Bookstore and Coffeehouse to discuss poetry, activism, and all things in between.
Abdul Ali will be reading his poems on April 20, 2016 at Creative Alliance in Highlandtown at 7:30 PM as a part of the Open Circle Reading Series, and at Red Emma’s on April 28, 2016 at 7:30 PM with Ailish Hopper.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How did you become a writer and an activist?
I grew up in a family where it was very typical to talk about politics over dinner. And my grandparents weren’t the type of people to use euphemisms; they were very direct. Just to give you a little context, I was growing up in the 90’s, when Rodney King was a very publicized thing. As a young person, I had a lot of questions. This is when New York City’s first black mayor was running, and that was this great “black hope” kind of moment. And then there were a slew of police brutality events that kind of politicized me as a younger person.
I went to high school in Manhattan, and I was curious about where the artists hung out. The NYU campus, the whole West Village, was very nourishing for me--to see public demonstrations, a lot of art shows. That was kind of how I chipped my teeth in [terms of] being a socially conscious citizen, and then the writing came later.
Did you willingly learn about social justice issues or was the knowledge forced onto you?
I don’t know that it was forced on me, and I don’t know that I willingly learned about it; I was sort of born into it. The great actress Ruby Dee always says, “I didn’t join the Civil Rights Movement; I was born into it.” I like that idea. I knew that being born an American, but also in a black body and male, meant certain things. That meant I would be more vulnerable in terms of getting a good education, in terms of everything. Of course I didn’t know this then, but I started seeing those divides. Being raised by depression-era-raised black folks, this idea of you having to be three times as good to get half as much, was very much indelibly printed in my young imagination.
What role do you think poetry plays in society today?
I think poetry is at the forefront of social movements. I am tutoring a homeschooled teenager on the side, and he is bringing all of this hip hop music that is basically poetry set to a beat, that is talking about Black Lives Matter, is talking about all this stuff. And I asked him, “Wow, you actually get all of these references? Forty acres and a mule and all that?” And he said, “Yeah, I get it. I don’t know if all of my friends get it, but I get it.”
I think poetry inhabits this special place, where I don’t know if it’s everything, but it’s certainly the beginning of something. We are naturally, as human beings, attracted to good stories. We’re attracted to rhythm. We remember rhyme. And I think, especially with popular music, you see that a lot. In terms of what I’m doing, it’s hard for me to say how much of an impact it has, because I feel that my audience is much smaller than a hip hop artist who has YouTube and sells millions of albums. Mine is more grass roots.
I think that on a smaller scale, I’m able to interact with readers and make myself available in situations like these, so that folks get what my project is. And then I’m a teacher, and I think that compliments my work as a writer, because I’m supporting all kinds of voices and all kinds of projects--so it’s this symbiosis.
In terms of what role poetry plays in society today, who has access to poetry and who doesn't? Do you think that pop culture makes poetry more accessible or offers different interpretations?
I think the question of literacy is a big one. What I try to do is use my voice as an instrument, so that as I’m reading, someone who may never be interested in buying a poetry book hopefully might say “I really like how you read that poem.” I feel that it’s my job to make [a poem] as interesting as I possibly can in terms of the presentation. But again, the platform that I’m operating on at the moment, is very much steeped in the academy.
I do collaborations. I did get to read with a band a couple of times, and that was really fun. As opportunities present themselves, I will continue to collaborate because I really love this idea of breaking down walls. I don’t want someone to [have to] be in an M.F.A. program; I don’t want that to be the prerequisite to know my work.
In the poem “Elegy,” after Troy Davis was killed, there was a group of mostly white protesters, and only the mother of Troy Davis cried. Do you think that there is a disconnect between the Black community and the social justice issues that affect us?
I don’t know if there’s a disconnect in terms of knowledge, but I do believe there may be a disconnect in terms of emotional impact. I know that in some ways, it may be fashionable to wear a Black Lives Matter tee shirt, but to actually be the mother who lost a son is a completely different experience. So I think, yes and no. Obviously experiencing these things is very different than writing policy or trying to get elected. We’ve seen Black Lives Matter being used as a bargaining chip to get in good with the black community.
Going back to the idea of things being fashionable, such as appropriating the Black Lives Matter movement in order to position yourself as progressive. I see that a lot on college campuses, but then the action piece is kind of lost. In your opinion, what is the status of campus activism?
I think young people really are at the front lines in terms of getting the message out that this is not okay. There’s also this feeling of “Oh my God, is this the world I’m going to enter?” It’s really troubling.
I remember when the riots broke out, I was very conflicted because on the one hand, I wanted to be with my students demonstrating. On the other, I’m a father and I’m a black man. I can’t really risk being arrested, because how would that impact my daughter? Young people might have less to lose and everything to gain. They haven’t really entered the professional world yet, so they don’t have to worry about pissing anyone off. For someone who is on contract at a job, and then being a person of color, you’re automatically in the minority and under a microscope. You have to think about it.
But as I get older I realize that you can fight in different ways. I think that young people on college campuses may have their sphere of influence. Those of us who have jobs, we have a different sphere of influence. I think me directly connecting with black men, or any young men, is an important thing, because hopefully they will walk away from that relationship woke. They can then live their lives accordingly. That is a different kind of fight. That is a different kind of work.
You tweeted a quote by James Baldwin, “Artists are here to disturb the peace.” Can you elaborate on that? Or tell us how that is relevant to your writing practices today?
I do believe that in order for change to happen, the stakes have to be real. As an artist, I don’t want to write about something I don’t feel vested in. I don’t know that my work disturbs the peace, but I certainly don’t want to write from a place of being comfortable… Whether that is talking about something personal or taboo or high stakes. Just look at the big splash that Ta-Nehisi Coates has made writing a letter to his son in the tradition of James Baldwin.
You seem to sometimes write what people might call “confessional” poetry, or at least poetry that deals with intensely personal subject matter. What is your process like when you write about personal subjects? Do you have to distance yourself from the subject matter, or revisit those experiences to become more intimately familiar with them? How does that work?
I would sort of separate myself from the confessional poets, and I would say that mine is more aligned with poetry of witness, whether these are personal moments or public moments. There is some poetry I have read where there seems to be no real point to it; it’s just catharsis. I would like to think that my work is more like taking out a camera and shooting something from a unique angle to get at a subject in interesting ways. It’s the little details, the particulars, and you get at the universal through the particulars.
I would see a lot of my work as ekphrasis. I’m always interested in the visual arts: What do I see? How do I relate that in a poem? I’m dealing with insomnia, so how do I translate that? How do I give the reader a sense of restlessness? How do I use my tools as a writer to give that effect? That was one of my challenges.
Can you talk a little bit about the forms you use and how you use them?
There is a lot of privileging of traditional forms. [In Trouble Sleeping], I wanted to give myself permission to experiment and to find an organic form for each poem because they are all different. The idea that free verse is easier than using traditional forms--I would reject that. How do you write improvisation into a poem? You can’t! You have to do a lot of trusting your craft to [write free verse]. And then the reading of the poem is a completely other experience.
I would say jazz is definitely a large influence, and the visual arts, cinema and photography. The idea of the book being sort of like a short film--these were things that came to me as I realized what my obsessions were. Using memory as the actual film, the content.
It seems that Robert Hayden has had a big influence on your work. When did you first encounter Hayden’s work? How has it affected you? And what other figures, literary or otherwise, have made an impression?
Everybody knows “Those Winter Sundays,” but it was reading Hayden, and seeing how experimental he was. He has this poem called “[American Journal],” where he did all this work with spacing, and it’s weird! It’s like the speaker is an extra terrestrial coming to America and is noticing all these strange habits. I really love the experiments of Robert Hayden. I really love the surrealism of Robert Hayden, and I really love that he didn’t have to beat you over the head with politics. It’s first a poem, and maybe it has implications, maybe it’s pointing to social justice or the political.
Martha Collins, I really love her work. But a lot of [Trouble Sleeping] was me trusting my own voice. The first book is so often a debut, is you trying to make room on the bookshelf for yourself. I really wanted to get to a place where I could be comfortable making those decisions, which wasn’t easy to do. There was a lot of doubt that I struggled with.
Can you talk a little bit about how jazz’s influence has specifically manifested itself in your work?
When I wrote the poem “Elegy” for Troy Davis, I was imagining a jazz solo. How do you talk about something sad, but not just to be sad? Some poems that are not in [Trouble Sleeping] deal with jazz more specifically--improvisation, Charlie Parker. I am very interested in these tragic figures, who made this amazing music, but their personal lives were really crazy. I love that jazz can communicate emotion without words, and I feel that although we use words to write poetry, the music between the words--that is what I’m interested in. How do I relay a certain emotion if I enjamb with a certain word, or if I break the line or the stanza in a certain way? All of this is very interesting to me.
What advice would you give your younger self?
I would say watch films, read, talk to people, but most importantly live. That thing that you really want to do but you’re afraid to do--try it. I think that is what makes you who you are supposed to be, and who you are.
What do you want to do in the future?
I want to write the best work that I can, that I can be proud of, that my daughter can be proud of, that will impact people's lives. I’d also like to show my daughter that you can go after your dreams and that life is yours to live. Don’t ever let anyone tell you, “No, you’ll never make a living. You can never do that.” People have been creating for a very long time. Those who must create will find a way to do it.
Out of this book, which was your favorite poem to write?
That’s like asking me what’s my favorite digit out of all my fingers and toes. I don’t know if I can answer my favorite, but I can maybe tell you which was the most difficult--“On passing.” There is the idea of passing--passing for white, passing for black--and also comparing myself with my father, who had a very different experience from myself. Have you ever read the Seamus Heaney poem “Digging?” There’s this feeling of inadequacy. I felt that very much. My father lived a very hard life. Not to say that I lived in a Bel Air mansion or anything like that, but my life had a very different trajectory. It was very clear that I was going to be college educated when I was young. It was very clear that I would be able to move in different circles. I think that was a really hard poem to write, and I’m glad that it made it in there. I had to shut off all the outside noise and dig in, and I think that’s where we get back to high stakes. Are you poet enough to tell the truth even if it puts you in an unpopular, unfavorable light? That is a hard thing to do. Are you able to be vulnerable, essentially? I don’t read it often. I might read it for these upcoming events.
Afiya Ervin is a junior at Baltimore City College. She is a core member of the school-based grassroots organization City Bloc and a member of Writers in Baltimore Schools. Though she is currently based in Baltimore, Maryland, she has future plans to travel the world.
Mia Capobianco is an artist from Baltimore, Maryland by way of Hartford, Connecticut.
Mia Capobianco is an artist from Baltimore, Maryland by way of Hartford, Connecticut.
