Agha Shahid Ali

Poet Agha Shahid Ali, at age ten. He's shown here in a hug with India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Click to enlarge

July 28, 2001 -- Poet Agha Shahid Ali was born in Kashmir in 1949. Dubbed Shahid by his family, he began his career by sending a letter to India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The letter earned the ten-year-old boy a meeting with Nehru, and a hug (shown in the picture).

The adult Shahid has lived in the United States for 25 years. He is an American citizen now and has published 6 collections of poetry, taught at universities around the country, and is someone who the late poet James Merrill called "mercurial"... who "turns troubles into bitter honey."

Agha Shahid Ali is facing a terminal illness. His short-term memory is poor. Both his brother and sister fill in his thoughts by sometimes reciting lines from the poetry he can no longer read. But as NPR's Jacki Lyden found out, there is a lightness to Shahid, who is as alive to any moment of the day as can be. Today, he is collaborating for the first time ever with an Israeli artist and a 7th collection of his poetry appears in September.

 Click here to hear a conversation with the poet.