Kazim Ali wins $10,000 2025 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism
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Arun Kumar- 0
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Kazim Ali, a poet, editor, and prose writer of Indian descent has been named the recipient of the 2025 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, a $10,000 prize that honors an outstanding book-length work of criticism published in the U.S. in the preceding year.
Ali was recognized for his book, “Black Buffalo Woman: An Introduction to the Poetry and Poetics of Lucille Clifton.”
Ali’s book is a revelatory and deeply researched exploration of Lucille Clifton’s extraordinary poetic legacy, according to a media release. As a poet and professor, Ali brings exceptional insight and care to his close readings, making this volume not only a brilliant work of criticism but also a valuable teaching tool.
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Describing the book as an invitation into Clifton’s poems, Ali opens the door for readers to engage more deeply with her formal range, fierce clarity, and spiritual depth.
Born in the United Kingdom to Muslim parents of Indian descent, Ali has lived transnationally in the United States, Canada, India, France, and the Middle East. He earned his BA and MA from the University at Albany, SUNY and his MFA from New York University.
Ali’s poetry collections include Sukun (Wesleyan University Press, 2023), The Voice of Sheila Chandra (Alice James Books, 2020), Inquisition (Wesleyan, 2018), Sky Ward (Wesleyan, 2013), The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008), and The Far Mosque (Alice James Books, 2005), which won Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award.
Ali’s prose includes Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water (Milkweed Editions, 2021), winner of the Banff Mountain Book Award in Environmental Literature, Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies (Tupelo Press, 2018), Anaïs Nin: An Unprofessional Study (Agape Editions, 2017), Resident Alien: On Border-crossing and the Undocumented Divine (University of Michigan Press, 2015), The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009), and Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan, 2009).
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Ali is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (BlazeVOX, 2005) and the experimental novel, written as a musical score, The Secret Room: A String Quartet (Kaya Press, 2017). He translated Marguerite Duras’s Abahn Sabana David (Open Letter Books, 2016) and When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me by Ananda Devi (Deep Vellum, 2022).
In 2004, Ali co-founded Nightboat Books and served as the press’s publisher until 2007. He has received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and his poetry has been featured in Best American Poetry.
Ali has been a regular columnist for the American Poetry Review and a contributing editor for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Writer’s Chronicle. He is a former member of the Cocoon Theatre Modern Dance Company.
Ali has taught at Oberlin College, Davidson College, St. Mary’s College of California, Naropa University, and the low-residency Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. He is currently a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, San Diego.