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Agha Shahid Ali

The Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali was born in New Delhi on February 4, 1949 and was raised in Kashmir. His father belonged to the illustrious Afghan Qisilbashi Agha family based in Srinigar, Kashmir; both

Dacca Gauzes, The

by Agha Shahid Ali (1949—2001)

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16

Those transparent Dacca gauzes

known as woven air, running

water, evening dew:

a dead art now, dead over

a hundred years. “No one

now knows,” my grandmother says,

 “what it was to wear 
 or touch that cloth.” She wore 
 it once, an heirloom sari from 

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May 22

Victor Hugo, died 1885

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Poetry Trivia

Question:

Sir Thomas Wyatt often found himself in trouble for his relationship with Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn, yet he always managed to escape with his head. What other English sonneteer, related to Henry's fifth wife Catherine Howard, was not so fortunate?

Answer

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. After Catherine was executed for adultery, Surrey, her cousin, was also executed for having incorporated the royal seal into his coat of arms.

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