Black Buffalo Woman

Kazim Ali’s books encompass multiple genres, including the volumes of poetry Inquisition, Sky Ward, winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry; The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award; The Fortieth Day; All One’s Blue; and the cross-genre texts Bright Felon and Wind Instrument. His novels include, The Secret Room: A String Quartet and his hybrid memoirs include, Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies and Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice.Ali is also an accomplished translator and an editor of several anthologies and criticisms. After a career in public policy and organizing, he taught at various colleges and universities. He is currently a Professor of Comparative Literature and Creative Writing, and chair of the Department of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. His newest books are Sukun: New and Selected Poems, and the novel Indian Winter.

"There are few joys as authentic as witnessing one poet praise and honor another. Lucille Clifton is one such poet that deserves all the praise from those of us who attempt to wander in her wake. In Black Buffalo Woman, Kazim Ali allows for not only the elucidation of Clifton's poems, but for their illumination. Each thoughtful essay lifts her poems to the light and returns you to Clifton's brilliance and power." — Ada Limón, 2022 Poet Laureate of the United States,  author of The Carrying"In Kazim Ali’s Black Buffalo Woman, Lucille Clifton’s poetic craft is given the microscope it deserves. Her scope and reach are oft forgotten; here, illuminated and celebrated, her heartwork and mastery go hand-in-hand, as she has created her own syntax, metered music, decadent elegies and infinite memory. Ali understands that Black language is myriad, so Clifton creates unparalleled nuance, moving language inside out of itself, reinscribing history. Her poems are fearless, funny, sexy, lush, biting, spiritual while political, reverent and indignant, rune and rumination—she contains multitudes. In her hands, the body is an opening, a pathway to divinity, no matter how broken, how willful or wild and dark. In Black Buffalo Woman, Lucille Clifton’s spirit goes on, words transcend, and her craft is a collage of blooming, 'a perpetual asking,' insisting we re-examine each realm of our ever-difficult, ever-miraculous living." — Remica Bingham-Risher, author of Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions that Grew Me Up