“A monument to the ‘music [that comes] out of the woods,’ to the music that was inside us all along. This collection’s movements in and out of various forms, countries, emotional and spiritual landscapes, and decades amounts in the end to a rousing attestation to lyric possibility. A true gift.” — Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of A Minor Chorus
“A comprehensive and stunningly beautiful collection of poems that explore the self in the world often through some form of remove, such as travel or being in a new place. The poems offer to lift us out of the mundane and into a sacred space or heightened brightness.” — Judy Halebsky, author of Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged)
“Exquisitely paced, Sukun is testament to Kazim Ali’s distinctive accomplishment as our wandering, ever-questing poet. As one word, one sound, gives birth to another, so these poems trace the path from son to a finally accepting family, from body to spirit, from earth to cosmos.” — Gillian Conoley, author of Notes from the Passenger
“A compilation from the heart and hand of an intense lyricist explores questions of queer love, spirituality, and the idea of home. Celebratory and poignant, vulnerable and wise, Ali works to honor a transnational lineage while also redrawing a genderless line of pilgrim prophet seekers.” — Soham Patel, author of all one in the end—/water
“These poems . . . display his characteristic word play and musical language in explorations of identity, migration, and intersections of cultural and spiritual traditions.” — Prairie Books NOW
“Through Sukun, Ali’s poems extend a hand to hold as we wait outside the door to Nowhere, eager to enter together, to listen, and move into new collective futures.” — Georgia Review
