Category: Past Events Published Date
Date: 30 Nov 2007
Title: A Poetic Evening with Abd al-Hayy Moore and Friends
Speakers: Danial Abd al-Hayy Moore, Muhammad Isa Waley, Abdul Wahhab Boase and Iman Williams (tbc)
Event: Details
A Poetic Evening with Danial Abd al-Hayy Moore and Friends
City Circle and Q-News in association with the Muslim College invites you to an evening of poetic inspiration with "American Islam's Poet Laureate" Danial Abd al-Hayy Moore and friends on Friday 30th November at 6.45pm at Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, off Edgware Road, London W1H 4LP.
Abd al-Hayy began writing in the 1960s and quickly became recognised, winning the Ina Coolbrith Award for poetry and the James D. Phelan Award for the manuscript of poems in progress that became Dawn Visions. Becoming a Muslim in 1970, he travelled through Europe and North Africa, and, as Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote of this period, Moore [became] a Sufi and, like Rimbaud, renounced written poetry."
But after ten years, Moore "renounced" his renunciation and published three books of poetry in the 1980s, The Desert is the Only Way Out, The Chronicles of Akhira, and Halley's Comet. In 1990 Mr. Moore moved with his family to Philadelphia , where he continues to write, publish and perform his poetry.
Daniel Moore's poems (sometimes under the name Abd al-Hayy Moore ) have appeared in such magazines as Zyzzva, the City Lights Review, and The Nation. He has read his poetry to 40,000 people at the United Nations in New York at a rally for the people of Bosnia during that war, and has participated in numerous conferences and conventions at universities. His book The Ramadan Sonnets, co-published by Kitab and City Lights Books, appeared in 1996, and his book of poems, The Blind Beekeeper, distributed by Syracuse University Press, in January of 2002.
He has been the major editor for a number of works, including The Burdah of Shaykh Busiri, translated by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, and the poetry of Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Munir Akash. He is also widely published on the worldwide web: The American Muslim, DeenPort, and his own website, among others, www.danielmoorepoetry.com. The Ecstatic Exchange Series is bringing out the extensive body of his works of poetry, beginning in 2005 with Mars & Beyond, Laughing Buddha Weeping Sufi, Salt Prayers and a revised edition of Ramadan Sonnets, and continuing in 2006 beginning with Psalms for the Broken hearted, I Imagine a Lion and Coattails of the Saint.
We hope to be joined on the night by Muhammad Isa Waley, Abdul Wahhab Boase and Iman Williams for more poetic inspiration and enchantment.
Free entrance. All welcome.