Mars & Beyond / Poems

by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore

A surreal/spiritual adventure to an imaginary Mars and further (more real) metaphysics, spinning strangely familiar worlds as close to us as the beating of our pulse and as far into imaginal space as the endlessly fascinating Red Planet and beyond… by the poet of Dawn Visions (City Lights, 1964), Burnt Heart (City Lights, 1972), The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company (1967-69), The Chronicles of Akhira, The Desert is the Only Way Out (Zilzal Press), The Ramadan Sonnets (Jusoor/City Lights, 1996), and The Blind Beekeeper (Jusoor/Syracuse University Press, 2002).

68 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

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.

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have rarely encountered any poet less known yet more deserving of praise than Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore. That he is not an academic and that he is a Sufi writing devotional poems adds to his obscurity, and it's a real shame because he writes with such a humorous, strong voice.
But this is just the beginning of my praise. In Mars & Beyond, Moore's language is incandescent as he moves with grace between the wondrous diversity of his images as they get in the teeth of a paradox, then wiggle out via a pratfall and enters into a soliloquy on the nature of Mars, that "veritible Rita Hayworth of planets."
Among those praising Moore in the liner notes of this book are Ferlinghetti and Silliman, and their praise is deserved. Moore's devotion to Allah is our gain. If you wish to read the poems up at his website, just go to: www.ecstaticxchange.wordpress.com