The notebook in front of you has been open to the same blank page for half an hour. Sighing, you rake your hand through your hair and stare up at the ceiling, hoping an idea will suddenly enter your mind. Nothing does, so you get up and pace the room, searching for a coherent thought to get you started. Still nothing comes. Feeling defeated, you switch your attention to another task. You’ll try again later.
For many writers, this scenario is all too familiar. We’ve all been plagued by a form of the dreaded writer’s block. We have methods to cope, but like the common cold there is no cure. Before you readily agree and despair at that thought, here is another: perhaps the remedy is actually within reach and is as simple as changing our approach to writing. This idea is central to the work of poet and novelist Kazim Ali.
Unlike many other writers, who begin with specific content and a prescribed form, Ali often approaches writing by challenging formal assumptions about language and writing.
“I’ve really made an effort at trying to start with the body [of the poem], or start with sound, or start with automatic writing, or start with notes … old journals or descriptions or to do lists. It could start anywhere,” he said in a question and answer period at Bowdoin College.
Just like his writing style, Ali’s introduction to poetry was unique. Growing up in a Muslim family, it was at religious gatherings that Ali first experienced poetry. There he listened to sung poems in Urdu and the Koran recited in Arabic. He was not familiar with either language.
“The earliest poetry to me was rhythm and sound but without meaning — a beautiful way, I think, to begin,” he said.
It was not until he saw the example of an older cousin who was a poet that he began to take poetry seriously.
“Writing poems was an ordinary thing that she did, in addition to all the other things that she did in her life,” Ali explained. “So when that was presented to me in such a way, I really did gravitate toward that.”
Since that early realization, Ali has tried to make poetry part of his everyday life, gleaning inspiration for his writing from his experiences. Whether he is attending an art show, watching a dance, listening to music, traveling or talking to people, he sees his experiences as a part of his writing process. Ali does not turn his experiences into autobiographical writing, but picks up an observation or idea that he will further explore in his poetry.
“For me it’s always about pushing language toward strangeness ... when my own poetry gets really sensible, I start to think, ‘how can I twist this up a little bit or make it a little more mysterious?’” he said.
Ali focuses not only on the content but also on the sound of his writing, believing that the way it sounds is as important as what it is being said.
“Any actor or performance artist or dancer will tell you it’s clearly true,” said Ali, according to The Oberlin Review. “But writers often don’t think that way. I think we often limit ourselves unnecessarily into certain modes.”
This boundary-breaking approach has not gone unnoticed. Critics and readers have praised Ali’s unique approach to poetry, describing it as well-crafted, avant-garde and intriguing. His novels have received equally positive attention.
“Kazim Ali … quietly, elegantly designs a poetry of fragments into a seamless narrative pattern,” said Karen Tei Yamashita in her review for his novel “The Disappearance of Seth.”
His first novel “Quinn’s Passage” was named one of “The Best Books of 2005” by Chronogram magazine.
The increase in attention for this relatively new author has neither altered his view on writing nor caused him to tread more carefully. Ali always encourages aspiring writers to attempt his experimental style.
“You have to be brave… you have to have guts, and you just have to listen to the silence and see what you hear,” he said to a group of students at Bowdoin College.
