Trouble Sleeping (First Book);

Poetry. African American Studies. "Abdul Ali's TROUBLE SLEEPING awakens the mind. Like the guts of a marvelous timepiece, the incremental details tick with merciless accuracy and timeless certainty. Urban, gutsy, each poem exposes the conflicts of an inner-city speaker. Yet even in the midst of conflict one believes the voice saying, 'I love the city.' Here, popular culture converges with iconic moments of American history; personal and worldly affairs, and a knowing, practiced music holds TROUBLE SLEEPING together as a needful song."—Yusef Komunyakaa