Author Ayaz Pirani was recently invited to be on PoetKind Podcast to discuss about his latest book Kabir’s Jacket Has a Thousand Pockets. In this podcast, Ayaz discusses about the oral tradition of Ginans. He also read “Anti-Martyr” poem from his book. Click link to listen to the podcast episode: Kabir’s Jacket Has a Thousand Pockets
About the Book: Kabir’s Jacket Has a Thousand Pockets
Step into the crater of East Africa and meet the grain of sand from Sindh. Eat pearls from
Indian Ismaili ginans and attend to the True Guru.
Aglow with post-colonial loss, wryly defiant of what they are admitting, the poems in Kabir’s Jacket Has a Thousand Pockets describe a warm estrangement and salty gratitude for being on Earth. It’s not war-reporting and Ayaz doesn’t solve crimes. He doesn’t have his head in the lion’s mouth. He draws from Kabir’s Bijak, Ghalib, and the oral granth and ginan tradition to plot a lifelong and generational immigration.
Book Review
“Wisdom poetry has seldom seemed as surprising or sly as it does in the hands of Ayaz Pirani.” –David Rivard
https://www.mawenzihouse.com/product/kabirs-jacket-has-a-thousand-pockets/
About the Author
Ayaz Pirani was born in Musoma, Tanzania, to parents born in Kapsabet, Kenya, and Tanga, Tanzania. He grew up in Canada and studied Humanities and Writing at Collège Glendon in Toronto and Concordia University in Montreal. At Vermont College of Fine Arts, Pirani was a student of the late Jack Myers. HAPPY YOU ARE HERE (The Word Works, 2016) is his first book. He lives near Monterey, California.
