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The Veiled Suite: The Collected Poems
The Veiled Suite collects the life’s work of Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali. Drawing from a remarkable range of sources that span continents and cultures, Ali displays an “imagination . . . supple and cultivated enough to draw on different cultures simultaneously” (New York Times Book Review). This definitive volume, Ali’s shining legacy, is a testament to the revolutionary voice that introduced the form of the ghazal to the American poetic lexicon—and brought the physical and emotional landscape of Kashmir to an audience of devoted readers. Beginning with the impassioned, never-before-published title poem, written after a dream related to Ali’s illness, The Veiled Suite moves through themes of mourning and loss, culminating in the ghazals of Call Me Ishmael Tonight. In one of his early poems, “Postcard from Kashmir ”, Ali reflects on the four-by-six-inch, “overexposed” nature of his homeland’s postcard existence. A poignant nostalgia for Kashmir pervades his work, but it is tinged with rage and despair in political poems that address the country’s struggles; “Hans Christian Ostro”, an homage to the Norwegian hostage killed in Kashmir in 1995, is one such poem: “a beggar, ears pressed to the metal cry, / will keep waiting on a ghost platform, / holding back his tears, waving every train / Goodbye and Goodbye.” Ali also maps the geographical and psychological terrain of his second home in A Nostalgist’s Map of America, acting as a cartographer and stargazer as he meditates on themes of journey and exile, myth and politics, history and loss. And in “Lenox Hill”, the first poem in Rooms Are Never Finished (a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001), loss is felt deeply and truthfully as Ali mourns the death of his mother: “. . . But there were times, Mother, / while you slept, that I prayed, ‘Saints, let her die.’ / Not, I s
400 pages, Paperback
First published February 4, 2009
68 people are currently reading
893 people want to read
About the author
Agha Shahid Ali
24 books213 followersAgha Shahid Ali (आगा शाहीद अली) was an American poet of Kashmiri ancestry and upbringing.
His poetry collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, Rooms Are Never Finished (finalist for the National Book Award, 2001). His last book was Call Me Ishmael Tonight, a collection of English ghazals. His poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and many other anthologies.
Ali was also a translator of Faiz Ahmed Faiz (The Rebel's Silhouette; Selected Poems) and editor (Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English). He was widely credited for helping to popularize the ghazal form in America.
Ali taught at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as well as creative writing programs at University of Utah, Warren Wilson College and New York University. He died peacefully, in his sleep, of brain cancer in December, 2001. He was laid to rest in Northampton, Massachusetts.
His poetry collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, Rooms Are Never Finished (finalist for the National Book Award, 2001). His last book was Call Me Ishmael Tonight, a collection of English ghazals. His poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and many other anthologies.
Ali was also a translator of Faiz Ahmed Faiz (The Rebel's Silhouette; Selected Poems) and editor (Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English). He was widely credited for helping to popularize the ghazal form in America.
Ali taught at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as well as creative writing programs at University of Utah, Warren Wilson College and New York University. He died peacefully, in his sleep, of brain cancer in December, 2001. He was laid to rest in Northampton, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
January 22, 2013
If i were a poem, I'd love to be written by AGha! May I say more?
Read
August 14, 2021Unaware of it's contextual circumstances in most of the poems upon which they might have been penned, I read these like it was written by me witnessing the people around me, and wrote for them. I read my book as Agha Shahid Ali. I'm the Shahid who never knew what it's like to live in an exiled land and watch the home experience the generations of longings and violence. I'm the Shahid who never meant well for everyone and everything for even the gods who must be lonely and in despair watching the world burning in the names of their very own. I'm the Shahid who never experienced the immense sentiments of words written on a postcard in my childhood. I'm the Shahid who never knew what it's like to forgive the universe which lets me get used to the universe without my beloved peoples. Maybe I, Shahid someday will experience all these things in my own way or maybe I won't. But I knew him and lived quite a life in his words. I'm Agha Shahid Ali.
"And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee—
God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight."
"And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee—
God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight."
March 29, 2012
If poetry can be trapped in one volume on earth, this is it, this is it, this is it.
October 23, 2013
Oh my God, oh Christian deity and Hindu pantheon and Allah of the former infidel, oh my unforgiven god do I love Agha Shahid Ali.
Why is this not canon? Why is this not taught? Why is Shahid so obscure that only Wikipedia'd chance brought us together?
To know that he, that this existed and that I might not have found it--might never have found him--knowing it just breaks me.
I am broken.
Why is this not canon? Why is this not taught? Why is Shahid so obscure that only Wikipedia'd chance brought us together?
To know that he, that this existed and that I might not have found it--might never have found him--knowing it just breaks me.
I am broken.
May 28, 2020
"Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox,
my home a neat four by six inches.
I always loved neatness. Now I hold
the half-inch Himalayas in my hand.
This is home. And this the closest
I’ll ever be to home. When I return,
the colors won’t be so brilliant,
the Jhelum’s waters so clean,
so ultramarine. My love
so overexposed.
And my memory will be a little
out of focus, in it
a giant negative, black
and white, still undeveloped."
RATING: ?/?
I was introduced to Agha Shahid Ali for the first time in 2015 when I was 15. There was a piece by Amitav Ghosh in one of my English textbooks, an incredibly moving tribute to Shahid, titled "The Ghat of the Only World" after one of latter's popular poems. It was not prescribed to us but—following a childhood habit of finishing my new books before classes began every year—I read it on a whim. I was familiar with Ghosh himself, although I had not read him yet, and he had penned an intensely emotional farewell to a poet he very clearly admired. I could vicariously experience Ghosh's grief easily. It felt like a beloved friend of my own had died. After finishing the essay, I googled up Shahid and found some of his poems online. Soon I was lost in his words, clicking one link after another in an attempt to read everything. Shahid remained dormant in my mind, resurfacing when I needed him.
It was not until I college that I finally decided to get his works. I went with The Veiled Suite as it promised to contain all his life's work. I read it in a week in April 2018. I was shifting constantly between a desire to devour it and a need to prolong my reading experience. On turning the last page, it was abundantly clear that I was madly in love. I have been reading for more than ten years now and it is rare that I admire a writer so much. Shahid was a balm. He was spiritual sustenance, food for the soul. Here was someone who could melt grief into words, turn language into a rosary of remembrance. He could distil ephemeral human emotions, extract their essence, and then reproduce them. History and memory were always at war in his verses. His poetic eye incisively cleaved to the bone. Shahid's poems combined technical expertise with creative ingenuity, each one a masterpiece.
Kashmir is a central presence in his writing, even though, by then, he had made America his second home. Shahid's poems don't just recount the troubles visited upon his beloved homeland and its people. To him, that would have been pointless. He instead transforms that long ledger of loss into rage-filled and despair-laden poetic endeavours. He takes full advantage of his rich cultural heritage by providing all his poems with an inexhaustible interpretive landscape. Shahid touches upon the themes of journey and exile, politics and myth, death and mourning. He unexpectedly moves from sorrow to joy and indifference to compassion, maintaining an intricate control over language which is inhuman. If I had to choose a single word to describe his verses, it would be "exquisite". He makes sadness beautiful but without cheapening it. A tender, reverential melancholy pervades the poems.
Shahid died of a brain tumour in 2001 at the age of 52, fourteen years before I first got to know about him. He was taken away early. It was an unfortunate death, a big blow to the world of literature. After every reread of TVS, I wonder what new direction his poetry could have taken next. I like to imagine an alternate world where Shahid survived, but I don't think he would have cared much for the US or India of today. Strange to say, but it is almost like we share an inexplicably weird affinity. I think I would have liked him had I gotten the opportunity to meet him. Perhaps, we could have had that really delectable Rogan Josh mentioned in Ghosh's essay. But all of that is just my idle wishful thinking, neither here nor there. I end with Shahid's own words, which I have taken the liberty to rearrange—"A night of ghazals comes to an end. Mad heart, be brave for the loved one always leaves."
PSA: As some of you would be aware, May 30th will mark the 300th day that Kashmir has been without 4G internet connectivity, at the direction of the union government of this country. Even Supreme Court has refused to take any concrete action on the matter. We must raise our voices to speak against this reprehensible measure and avoid becoming silent supporters of such blatant oppression.
my home a neat four by six inches.
I always loved neatness. Now I hold
the half-inch Himalayas in my hand.
This is home. And this the closest
I’ll ever be to home. When I return,
the colors won’t be so brilliant,
the Jhelum’s waters so clean,
so ultramarine. My love
so overexposed.
And my memory will be a little
out of focus, in it
a giant negative, black
and white, still undeveloped."
RATING: ?/?
I was introduced to Agha Shahid Ali for the first time in 2015 when I was 15. There was a piece by Amitav Ghosh in one of my English textbooks, an incredibly moving tribute to Shahid, titled "The Ghat of the Only World" after one of latter's popular poems. It was not prescribed to us but—following a childhood habit of finishing my new books before classes began every year—I read it on a whim. I was familiar with Ghosh himself, although I had not read him yet, and he had penned an intensely emotional farewell to a poet he very clearly admired. I could vicariously experience Ghosh's grief easily. It felt like a beloved friend of my own had died. After finishing the essay, I googled up Shahid and found some of his poems online. Soon I was lost in his words, clicking one link after another in an attempt to read everything. Shahid remained dormant in my mind, resurfacing when I needed him.
It was not until I college that I finally decided to get his works. I went with The Veiled Suite as it promised to contain all his life's work. I read it in a week in April 2018. I was shifting constantly between a desire to devour it and a need to prolong my reading experience. On turning the last page, it was abundantly clear that I was madly in love. I have been reading for more than ten years now and it is rare that I admire a writer so much. Shahid was a balm. He was spiritual sustenance, food for the soul. Here was someone who could melt grief into words, turn language into a rosary of remembrance. He could distil ephemeral human emotions, extract their essence, and then reproduce them. History and memory were always at war in his verses. His poetic eye incisively cleaved to the bone. Shahid's poems combined technical expertise with creative ingenuity, each one a masterpiece.
Kashmir is a central presence in his writing, even though, by then, he had made America his second home. Shahid's poems don't just recount the troubles visited upon his beloved homeland and its people. To him, that would have been pointless. He instead transforms that long ledger of loss into rage-filled and despair-laden poetic endeavours. He takes full advantage of his rich cultural heritage by providing all his poems with an inexhaustible interpretive landscape. Shahid touches upon the themes of journey and exile, politics and myth, death and mourning. He unexpectedly moves from sorrow to joy and indifference to compassion, maintaining an intricate control over language which is inhuman. If I had to choose a single word to describe his verses, it would be "exquisite". He makes sadness beautiful but without cheapening it. A tender, reverential melancholy pervades the poems.
Shahid died of a brain tumour in 2001 at the age of 52, fourteen years before I first got to know about him. He was taken away early. It was an unfortunate death, a big blow to the world of literature. After every reread of TVS, I wonder what new direction his poetry could have taken next. I like to imagine an alternate world where Shahid survived, but I don't think he would have cared much for the US or India of today. Strange to say, but it is almost like we share an inexplicably weird affinity. I think I would have liked him had I gotten the opportunity to meet him. Perhaps, we could have had that really delectable Rogan Josh mentioned in Ghosh's essay. But all of that is just my idle wishful thinking, neither here nor there. I end with Shahid's own words, which I have taken the liberty to rearrange—"A night of ghazals comes to an end. Mad heart, be brave for the loved one always leaves."
PSA: As some of you would be aware, May 30th will mark the 300th day that Kashmir has been without 4G internet connectivity, at the direction of the union government of this country. Even Supreme Court has refused to take any concrete action on the matter. We must raise our voices to speak against this reprehensible measure and avoid becoming silent supporters of such blatant oppression.
March 27, 2022
The Veiled Suite is an omnibus of poet's six major works. I passed out by the fifth, so I'm not sure I'll even touch the sixth portion of this collection.
Agha Shahid is a very good poet, no arguments there, but he's not MY favourite poet is the lesson I learnt. His poems are laced with emotions, but those emotions fail to reach me. The lines feel dry like a husk, they feel forced. He milks same imagery and symbolism again and again, and the way he keeps dropping names of exotic, Grecian places makes me want to roll my eyes. He, without joke, puts "Ten" in "PreTENtious".
I'm sad and disappointed at the same time.
Agha Shahid is a very good poet, no arguments there, but he's not MY favourite poet is the lesson I learnt. His poems are laced with emotions, but those emotions fail to reach me. The lines feel dry like a husk, they feel forced. He milks same imagery and symbolism again and again, and the way he keeps dropping names of exotic, Grecian places makes me want to roll my eyes. He, without joke, puts "Ten" in "PreTENtious".
I'm sad and disappointed at the same time.
Want to read
April 29, 2020As a Kashmiri, a must have collection of poems in your shelf. The poems are nostalgic, strewn with a kind of emptiness and cultural longing reflected in rich words.
December 5, 2010
Agha Shahid Ali is brilliant. He's more formal than a lot of the poets I read and he pulls it off incredibly well. There's a very... I don't know... global? sense about his poems. He also has some funny poems to balance the heartbroken ones, which is another rarity for me.
April 15, 2020
This collection includes poems from:
• The Half-inch Himalayas
• A Walk through the Yellow Pages
• A Nostalgist's Map of America
• The Country Without a Post Office
• Rooms are Never Finished • Call Me Ishmael Tonight
If one were to describe the entire collection in one word, it would be "grief". The poems carry so much of grief in them that it becomes very difficult for one to just merely read through them like one normally would. They grab you by the shoulder and shake you until you come to terms with your own privelege and entitlement. But along with all the emotions that the poems stirred in me, I was also lost in the sheer beauty of these poems. I slowed down my reading pace, savoured each poem by itself, because honestly, that was the only way I could pay my respect to Agha Shahid Ali and his love for Kashmir.
I would recommend this collection to anyone who loves to read poems, and to anyone who is interested in literature from Kashmir. But I must warn you that this will not be an easy read.
Let me also remind you that it has been 253 days since Kashmir has been cut off from the rest of the world.
• The Half-inch Himalayas
• A Walk through the Yellow Pages
• A Nostalgist's Map of America
• The Country Without a Post Office
• Rooms are Never Finished • Call Me Ishmael Tonight
If one were to describe the entire collection in one word, it would be "grief". The poems carry so much of grief in them that it becomes very difficult for one to just merely read through them like one normally would. They grab you by the shoulder and shake you until you come to terms with your own privelege and entitlement. But along with all the emotions that the poems stirred in me, I was also lost in the sheer beauty of these poems. I slowed down my reading pace, savoured each poem by itself, because honestly, that was the only way I could pay my respect to Agha Shahid Ali and his love for Kashmir.
I would recommend this collection to anyone who loves to read poems, and to anyone who is interested in literature from Kashmir. But I must warn you that this will not be an easy read.
Let me also remind you that it has been 253 days since Kashmir has been cut off from the rest of the world.
March 3, 2009
great poet.
def worth reading.
def worth reading.
September 2, 2013
it's beautiful
July 22, 2010
I love the cover and realised that it could be a good book. Well done.
January 21, 2015
This is a fantastic collection of Agha Shahid Ali's works.
December 29, 2018
It’s an extremely personal book that runs through so many feelings, yet staying with each. It doesn’t really need many words to justify its brilliance.
July 14, 2022
Agha Shahid Ali is a Kashmiri poet who lived in US. He has penned down some really emotional poems Circling around Kashmir, his mother, Delhi, Ghalib, Faiz, and life in general. This is a collection of all his poems
November 27, 2019
Each poem in the collection takes you on a unique journey.
Then you reach the ghazals of "Call Me Ishmael Tonight", and it transcends into brilliance
Then you reach the ghazals of "Call Me Ishmael Tonight", and it transcends into brilliance
December 17, 2021
Finished this in a disinterested hurry.
Formless, plain and no magic as to what people look for in poetry.
Formless, plain and no magic as to what people look for in poetry.
September 28, 2020
A beyond beautiful collection of Ghazals. Shahid was one of a kind. The pain, agony, love and bereavement, the beauty, happiness, god, ugliness, haunting challenges of life and suffering all find a mention in this one.
The metaphors, comparisons and similes are just so perfect. If you like reading portray, there’s no reason for not delving into this one. It peels off the skin you’ve been carrying on for so long and exposes the vulnerability underneath, the truth of your being, the sadness and fears you carry.
Read the poems, for you may find yourself in one of them.
The metaphors, comparisons and similes are just so perfect. If you like reading portray, there’s no reason for not delving into this one. It peels off the skin you’ve been carrying on for so long and exposes the vulnerability underneath, the truth of your being, the sadness and fears you carry.
Read the poems, for you may find yourself in one of them.
March 11, 2010
For the time being, I'm abandoning this. I've read all but the last two collections, but am just not enjoying most of it. I came at it primarily not expecting 'poetry' per se, but rather insight into Kashmir and dealing with the situation there. There is a lot of that, but Ali's dominant style and approach simply don't appeal to me. I find it too often nebulous.
March 20, 2012
Brilliant.
October 30, 2012
It cant get sexier than this....poetry at its best.. Love you Agha...
June 20, 2022
I haven't yet finished reading this collection but I just had to post a review. Every poem is such a sublime experience, I've been savouring them & stretching out the book so it can last a really long time.
I only heard about Agha Shahid Ali last year when I came across a poem of his in a collection of subcontinent poetry & heard his name spoken in Urdu/Hindi as well as English poetry groups. No other poet I've encountered bridges the gaps between these linguistic styles with as much yearning, honesty & magic.
I've read some of the other collections by Ali but I think this one is the masterpiece, ranging from intimate reflections on moving houses to deeply personal odes to Faiz Ahmad Faiz to nostalgia of generations left behind to sweeping political odes. Always tinged with the intergenerational anguish of Partition & the Indian Freedom movement.
I only heard about Agha Shahid Ali last year when I came across a poem of his in a collection of subcontinent poetry & heard his name spoken in Urdu/Hindi as well as English poetry groups. No other poet I've encountered bridges the gaps between these linguistic styles with as much yearning, honesty & magic.
I've read some of the other collections by Ali but I think this one is the masterpiece, ranging from intimate reflections on moving houses to deeply personal odes to Faiz Ahmad Faiz to nostalgia of generations left behind to sweeping political odes. Always tinged with the intergenerational anguish of Partition & the Indian Freedom movement.
January 19, 2021
It is my first work of Agha Shahid Ali, I took it up as study text for the course of Lyric Poet, and I fell for the deep poetic connotation by Shahid - every feeling so strong and vividly embedded in the text - Shahid brings out the emotion of lost home, lost identity, lost culture, lost humanity- all so strong and loud! It echoes the bitterness in a melody of poem.
And the bonus part is, this book comprises of his following selected poems from the book of
1. The Half-Inch Himalaya
2. A Walk Through The Yellow Pages
3. A Nostalgist’s Map of America
4. The Country without A Post Office
5. Rooms Are Never Finished
6. Call Me Ishmael Tonight
And the bonus part is, this book comprises of his following selected poems from the book of
1. The Half-Inch Himalaya
2. A Walk Through The Yellow Pages
3. A Nostalgist’s Map of America
4. The Country without A Post Office
5. Rooms Are Never Finished
6. Call Me Ishmael Tonight
January 9, 2018
refreshingly tender and original, at times brutal and honest to a disconcerting level. agha shahid ali creates striking images and shows surprising display of love and compassion where one can least expect it. definitely one of the finest poets to come out of an indian (kashmiri as he would say it) origin.
March 31, 2022
i dont believe that i have read anything so very beautiful ever before. It has enveloped me like loss and love and I think i have come to see longing differently. The metaphors are just so very beautiful and would make even a unfeeling human feel deeply
May 2, 2025
I'm only halfway through this collection in a library copy, and I already want to buy it so I can reread it!! I already feel as though I am friends with Shahid himself, even though he was dead before I was born. This collection is filled with so much grief and beauty, I feel as though I can see the wartorn Kashmir.
December 8, 2025
at times deeply moving, at times all too dull. i kept getting pulled into and out of it and suffice it to say while there's a few pieces of his i'll always love, his style or his collections at large are not my cup of tea. the years it took me to finish this is proof enough.
May 27, 2018
The intricacy, the emotions, the purity of this is angelic. It’s so heavy yet so light. I keep going back to it again and again. This isn’t just poetry, it’s some unknown art, some mystical magic.
June 29, 2018
His heartfelt language combines the depth of context from ancient culture with a post modern sense of connection, individuality and emotion.
August 28, 2019
My favourite poet
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews