Recent events have brought Cincinnati and the 27 years I spent there teaching at the University of Cincinnati vividly back to mind.
Strange confluence of voices and memories. People from that past whom I never forgot.
I left there in 2009 with every intention to return.
I was called out of the classroom with the news that my Aunt Anna had collapsed in her home in Pawtucket and was found there after spending two days on the floor.
They did not expect her to live through the night. I left and flew back to RI immediately.
But I never did return to the classroom.
I did return to the city, but just to pack up my house and put it on the market. There was no going away party and no fond farewells. And yet I liked the place and felt liked there as well.
Why do I call it Sin City?
That name is ironic, as when the noted poet Agha Shahid Ali from Kashmir visited and opened his remarks by commenting, "CINCINNATI-a city of just two sins/cins how I wish I could add a few more tonight."
That was the brilliant ghazal master making a joke. After all Cincinnati is famous for being a virtuous place.
. Another American poet, Michael Palmer, has cited Mr. Ali's links to poets ranging from the Urdu-language Faiz Ahmed Faiz to the Spaniard Federico García Lorca. Mr. Ali helped introduce American poets to a venerable Persian poetic form, the ghazal.
His visit influenced me deeply and I renewed again my efforts to write ghazals, a Persian form that I had encountered in the year that I spent living in Amritsar at Guru Nanak Dev University.
