Didn't win
Well, I didn't win the Andalusia Prize. I suppose that's both good and bad news. Bad news because it's fun to win prizes, they look good on your resume, and $1000 never hurts. Good because that means there's a decent level of competition out there. Contempory poetry by Muslims in English, especially that of a religious bent, can be rather... umm... childish. I don't know if that's because of a lack of knowledge about poetry, or because the people who are writing Islamic poetry have a simple faith, or why. Whyever it is, there is a lot of bad Islamic poetry out there. Losing the prize means there's also a lot of good Islamic poetry out there.
Anyway, I thought I'd list some Muslim poets sites I enjoy. Maybe you will like them too.
http://www.danielmoorepoetry.com/ Daniel Abdal Hayy Moore is an excellent poet and an all around cool guy. He posts a new poem every week, a real treat for the soul.
http://www.asmasociety.org/culture/literary_kahf.html This is a page where you can find some of Mohja Kahf's work. Mohja is so full of energy and the joy of life, you can't help but feel uplifted reading her work.
www.muslimpoet.com Run by Dasham "Dash" Brookins. The poetry on Muslim poet is self selected so the quality runs the gamut. Dasham himself is a great spoken word artist.
http://muslimvoicespoetry.4t.com/ Ok, so this is a bit of shameless self-promotion, this is the site where you can find the poems of the winners of the Muslim Voices 2006 poetry contest. I look forward to seeing the poems for coming years.
Suggestions from others very welcome