On Meeting Robert Hayden in a Dream by Abdul Ali

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 29, 2015   On Meeting Robert Hayden in a Dream   Abdul Ali

here among them  the dead  the others  the aliens I see you without    coke bottle glasses   a wavy comb over  your nose buried inside a notebook  over-   flowing with strange sightings   men and women without a homeland   a library to shelve histories dreams   the names of rare flowers  fruits  baby names   exiled from their villages   learning to say hello with accents thick   with nostalgia   for their purple planets here UFO sightings aren’t so spectacular   border crossing is quintessentially american  universal crowds gather in squalid ghettoes where every country is a city every city is a verse  & every verse echoes “Those Winter Sundays”   where a New World opens up where all the martians are welcome  at the writing table with their fountain pens & swollen digits & you           whispering   what took so long?            Copyright © 2015 by Abdul Ali. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘On Meeting Robert Hayden in a Dream’ is an homage to Robert Hayden, a giant of American and African American letters. When I first read his collection American Journal, I was immediately struck by his interest in ‘the other.’ I do not need to tell you how relevant his work is today. Are we not ‘aliens’ to each other? Are we not holding signs claiming that our lives matter? I believe now more than ever, Hayden’s work needs to be discussed as a pillar of American literature in the way that we talk about Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.” —Abdul Ali   Abdul Ali is the author of Trouble Sleeping (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2015). He teaches at Towson University and lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Poetry by Ali   Trouble Sleeping (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2015) "[American Journal]" by Robert Hayden from "Citizen VI, part 2" by Claudia Rankine "Dream Variations" by Langston Hughes Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038