66 — Blackbird Archive

← v6n2, Fall 2007

Bilal’s world, black world, mortgaged world, third world,

the black pupil in the roving eye of the earth.

Bilal’s compass had redrawn it as the crescent-world.

Warmth of the sun had made it fertile.

Now mercurial, it quickens at his name.

In locked, arid hopelessness, a sparkle in the eye.

race religion politics

Raza Ali Hasan

Raza Ali Hasan’s book of poetry, Grieving Shias , was published by Sheep Meadow Press in 2006. His second poetry manuscript, 67 mogul miniatures, is forthcoming from Autumn House Press in 2009. His poems have appeared in AGNI, Shenandoah , Tampa Review, Cimarron Review , Puerto del Sol and Poetry International . Hasan received an MFA from Syracuse University, and also has an MA in English from the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently a visiting professor at Iowa State University.