Here are some annotations to selected references in Agha Shahid Ali’s Call Me Ishmael Tonight, together with some information about the poet. These are for my students in Principles of Literary Study this semester, who are reading the book this week. But perhaps it will be of some use for other readers of this remarkable poet. The poet is sometimes referred to by his last name Ali and sometimes by his pen-name Shahid—which is also what his friends called him. I’ve chosen “Shahid.” Y...
