Poets in the Galleries v3: Ali Husain Mir Responds to Tarjama / Translation

Sunday, September 13, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm, 2009

Ali Hussain Mir

Every Sunday, September 6 - 27 the Poets in the Galleries series utilizes the Museum’s exhibition space as an invigorating site of exploration, interactive readings and discussions. Each Sunday in September, a different poet will conduct a lively presentation in response to the Museum’s current exhibition, “Tarjama/Translation.” These gifted participants, all distinguished and emerging voices in the local, national and international literary scene, have been asked to devise an original presentation in response to the works on view. The resulting interdisciplinary dialogue will surely foster provocative intellectual exchanges and provide audiences with new ways of accessing the Museum’s resources. The current exhibition lends itself especially well to the series, by creating an open-ended forum in which the poets and visitors alike can explore the related themes of how poetry is translated across languages and cultures. Join us for a cocktail hour followed by the interactive gallery tour & readings by a different poet each week.  Participating poets include: Amir Parsa, Ali Husain Mir, Ammiel Alcalay, and Sinan Antoon.

Ali Husain Mir is co-author of Anthems of Resistance, a book about the iconoclastic tradition of poetry nurtured by the Urdu progressive writers’ movement in the Indian subcontinent. The book offers substantial translations of poetry, documents the rise of the Progressive Writers’ Association, its period of ascendancy, its crucial role in the struggle for independence, and its spirit of resistance against injustice. Ali grew up in Hyderabad, India works as a professor in New York City, and writes for Hindi cinema on occasion. He is the lyricist of six recent films and has co-written the story for the 2006 movie “Dor”.