Cooked Oranges / Poems

by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore

Poetic inspiration continues to be a mystery to me, but I am its deep advocate, and hold to its irrational and shady acreage like a greedy real estate developer gazing out over the possibilities (a ramshackle hut here, a barn there, a castle with a lake yonder…). Is it angels, djinn, my black cat curled at the bottom of my bed while I’m hot in composition mode? My “unconscious,” "God Consciousness?” (my fervent prayer).

168 pages, Paperback

First published September 27, 2007

About the author

Born in 1940 in Oakland, California, Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore’s first book of poems, Dawn Visions, was published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books, San Francisco, in 1964, and the second in 1972, Burnt Heart/Ode to the War Dead. He created and directed The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company in Berkeley, California in the late 60s, and presented two major productions, The Walls Are Running Blood, and Bliss Apocalypse. He became a Sufi Muslim in 1970, performed the Hajj in 1972, and lived and traveled throughout Morocco, Spain, Algeria and Nigeria, landing in California and publishing The Desert is the Only Way Out, and Chronicles of Akhira in the early 80s (Zilzal Press). Residing in Philadelphia since 1990, in 1996 he published The Ramadan Sonnets (Jusoor/City Lights), and in 2002, The Blind Beekeeper (Jusoor/Syracuse University Press). He has been the major editor for a number of works, including The Burdah of Shaykh Busiri, translated by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, and the poetry of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Munir Akash. He is also widely published on the worldwide web: The American Muslim, DeenPort, and his own website, among others: http://www.danielmoorepoetry.com. The Ecstatic Exchange Series is bringing out the extensive body of his works of poetry, beginning in 2005 with Mars & Beyond, Laughing Buddha Weeping Sufi, Salt Prayers and a revised edition of Ramadan Sonnets, and continuing in 2006 beginning with Psalms for the Brokenhearted, I Imagine a Lion, Coattails of the Saint, Love is a Letter Burning in a High Wind, and The Flame of Transformation Turns to Light. Abdallah Jones and the Disappearing-Dust Caper is the tenth in the series, and the first for young adults in the Ecstatic Exchange / Crescent Series.