*Elsewhere: An Elegy meditates on the complexities of loss, on how private
and everlasting the weight of grief can be. Moving between short fragmented
“answers” to the same lingering question, deconstructed haibun, and dream
sequences, the speaker in Elsewhere: An Elegy cannot but help see himself
as his own father, and his infant son as his own young self. He admits,
“I’ve still not divined / how to unhusk this steadfast / grief from my
poems.” Ultimately, he comes to recognize that the most healing way to
grieve is to give, is to translate loss into generosity, pain into
poetry. *[image:
Picture]
https://www.faisalmohyuddin.com/uploads/7/5/6/1/75619925/elsewhere-cover-mohyuddin_orig.jpg
(The cover features my painting, “My Father’s Songs.”)
Allah Castles
BY FAISAL MOHYUDDIN
are what my son,
with a 5-year-old’s
sweetness, calls every
house of worship,
is how I can tell
he is a traveler too.
O, how many times
I’ve performed salah
in empty churches,
whispered ameen
at mass, made wudu
before holding
the Torah or the
Guru Granth Sahib,
nodded reverently
at the statue of Ganesh
in my best friend’s
home. God is God
is God, is a wisdom
my son’s already
divined, that echoes
through the spaciousness
of his wonder. When
I lie beside him
tonight, recite the
Ayat al-Kursi,
then blow its protective
blessings over his
beaming face, his
growing body,
I too think of Allah,
of His many castles,
His singular Throne.
Source: Poetry (May 2021)
——————————
[image: Picture]
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/155797/allah-castles
Read Faisal’s poem “Allah Castles”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/155797/allah-castles
from
the May 2021
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/issue/155761/may-2021#toc
issue
of Poetry. And listen to The Poetry Magazine Podcast
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/155861/ashley-m-jones-and-faisal-mohyuddin-in-conversation
where
Faisal and Ashley M. Jones https://ashleymjonespoetry.com/ talk about
faith, teaching, race, human connection, authenticity, seeing and honoring
others, and the place of poetry in our lives.
——————————
——————————
Faisal is one of the 23 artists whose work is featured in the *American
Muslim Futures http://www.americanmuslimfutures.com/* virtual exhibit
which opens September 21, 2020. Co-created by Muslim Advocates
https://muslimadvocates.org/ and the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art,
Culture, and Design https://www.shangrilahawaii.org/, AMF envisions a
truly just America, one free of hate and oppression.
[image: Picture] https://onbeing.org/programs/a-poem-for-ritual-and-reset/
Listen to Faisal’s poem “Prayer” featured on the “A Poem for Ritual and
Reset” https://onbeing.org/programs/a-poem-for-ritual-and-reset/ episode
of Poetry Unbound https://onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound/, a podcast
hosted by poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama
http://www.padraigotuama.com/ and produced by The On Being Project
[image: Picture] https://www.faisalmohyuddin.com/artwork.html
“Dua for America” (ink on paper, 2020) by Faisal Mohyuddin
——————————
[image: Picture] https://www.faisalmohyuddin.com/artwork.html
“Dua for America” (ink on paper, 2020) by Faisal Mohyuddin
——————————
Migration Narrative
What wilts becomes
the world for the weary.
They can’t help but
wonder at the lovely
shadow touch of another
war’s rubbled song.
If crossing freely into fire
can churn the blood’s
hollow music, then
surely the orphan can
ask at dusk for water
and get more than spit.
First published in Prairie Schooner, Spring 2017
[image: Picture]
https://www.faisalmohyuddin.com/uploads/7/5/6/1/75619925/fm-photo-2020_orig.jpg
is a writer, artist, and educator. The child of immigrants from Pakistan,
he is the author of Elsewhere: An Elegy (forthcoming spring 2024 from Next
Page Press) and of The Displaced Children of Displaced Children, (Eyewear,
2018), which won the 2017 Sexton Prize in Poetry, and was selected as a
2018 Summer Recommendation of the Poetry Book Society and named a “highly
commended” collection of the year by the Forward Arts Foundation; it went
on to receive an Honorable Mention in the Association of Asian American
Studies 2020 Book Award for Poetry. Faisal is also the author of
the chapbook The Riddle of Longing (Backbone Press, 2017). His work has
received Prairie Schooner’s Edward Stanley Award, a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry
Prize from the Illinois State Library, and an Illinois Arts Council
Literary Award. His recent work appears in Poetry Magazine, Poet
Lore, Kweli, The Margins, Pleiades, Chicago Quarterly Review, and RHINO. An
alumnus of the U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright Teachers for Global
Classrooms program, Faisal is a graduate of Carleton College, Northwestern
University, and Columbia College Chicago. An educator adviser and master
practitioner for the global-not-for-profit Narrative 4, he teaches high
school English in suburban Chicago and creative writing at the School of
Professional Studies at Northwestern University.
(Author photo by Wendy Alas / @wendyalasphotography
