This Poet Is/Not Dust

January 14th 2025 Update:

To help raise funds for my brother Salim, who is fighting stage 4 Liver Cirrhosis & needing a liver transplant to stay alive, we’ll be doing a marathon of performances of poetry/prose & theatre to hopefully compel people to give & to hopefully spread the word about our search for a living liver donor for Salim. You will be able to listen to all readings below, and you can help support my brother Salim at the link here: https://www.viciousminuteshour.com/salim

Rock Me, Mercy - a poem by Yusef Komunyakaa, read by RM

Now I Become Myself - a poem by May Sarton, read by RM

Letter Poem #3 - a poem by James Schuyler, read by RM

In Time - a poem by W.S. Merwin, read by RM

Imaginary Conversation - a poem by Linda Pastan, read by RM

Snowdrops - a poem by Louise Glück, read by RM

Listen - a poem by Barbara Crooker, read by RM

Stumbling - a poem by Dick Lourie, read by RM

The View - a poem by Mark Strand, read by RM

I am Learning to Abandon the World - a poem by Linda Pastan, read by RM

Changing Genres - a poem by Dean Young, read by RM

Bird - a poem by Dorianne Laux, read by RM

Being Present at More Than One Place at a Time - a poem by James Tate, read by RM

After Years - a poem by Ted Kooser, read by RM

The Virtue - a poem by Paul Blackburn, read by RM

These Heroics - a poem by Leonard Cohen, read by RM

Time - a poem by John Wieners, read by RM

Wind Off a River - a poem by Dean Young, read by RM

With a Blessing Rather than Love Said Nietzsche - a poem by Linda Gregg, read by RM

Invictus - a poem by William Ernest Henley, read by RM

Small Kindness - a poem by Danusha Lameris, read by RM

Morelliana - Hopscotch Excerpt - by Julio Cortazar, read by RM

Episode One - Agha Shahid Ali

Kashimiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali died of brain cancer on December 8, 2001 in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was 52.

Poem - The Country Without a Post Office, by Agha Shahid Ali. Interview text by Eric Gamalinda.

Text performed by RM.

A Quick Word

As I’m wure you’ve seen elsewhere on the site (specifically at Emergency Fundraiser for Salim — VMH) for the past year, my brother Salim has been dealing with Stage 4 Liver Cirrhosis. Without a liver transplant soon, he will die.

His work has now moved him to long-term disability and that affects his benefits as well for very expensive medication. The financial strain on him is only exacerbating his condition.

We’ve been running a fundraiser for him, but it’s going pretty slow lately. We’ve also set up a campaign to help find him a living liver donor, but there are layers of bureaucracy that make it challenging to receive a transplant from a living donor in this country

The fundraiser is for his rent, food & medication but more, it’s to buy us enough time to find him that living liver donor to save his life.

I know it’s hard out there. I know it’s the holidays, I know of the financial uncertainty of things. But if everyone reading this donated $25 or more to him, it buys him that time for me to find him that living liver donor and we save his life.

If you’re willing to help us, you can visit this link - Emergency Fundraiser for Salim — VMH or simply click on the ‘Donate’ button below (& if you do, on behalf of my brother & my family, thank you)

r.