On April 6th, 2025, the Ecstatic Exchange and Lote Tree Press held a live poetry reading for the winners, judges, and some of the shortlisted poets of the inaugural Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore Ecstatic Poetry Prize, judged by Baraka Blue and Sukina Noor. The gathering was hosted by Medina Tenour Whiteman. Catch the replay above.
Speaking at the award ceremony about the experience of judging the competition, judge and poet Sukina Noor commented,
“It was a very powerful experience to read contemporary voices of people tasting the sacred… I think it’s important because we have access, mashaAllah, to a wonderful tradition of ancient mystics who are having these really ecstatic experiences, and it can quite easily be felt by the modern person that “I can’t participate in this”, or “this doesn’t include me”, or “I can’t connect to the divine in that way because I live in this contemporary culture”, but to see people really sharing from that place of truth and that place of tasting – in the Sufi tradition we talk a lot about Sufism [being] the science of al-dhawq [spiritual experience or “taste”] – and so to receive poetry of people tasting and engaging with the sacred in a very intimate and mystical way is just a wonder. So it was really incredible to read… I’m sure Sidi Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore would be really happy to know that his name and his legacy is initiating the continuation of this pursuit of Allah – and poetry being a pathway to that.”
Discussing the legacy of Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, judge and poet Baraka Blue said,
“He was someone who was genuinely one of the most inspired individuals that I’ve ever met. They say that a poet’s job is to notice and that poetry is primarily a way of perceiving and only secondarily a way of expressing. You can be a poet without ever writing a word on a page or reciting a word of poetry because poetry is primarily a way of perceiving. That’s why of course it’s no mistake that Abdal-Hayy called his endeavour Ecstatic Exchange, because it is a way of perceiving, that perceives the ecstatic in the ordinary… that everything is a mystical experience… the real poets call us out of our slumber and call us into awe – and awe and reverence lead to ecstasy.”
Sukina Noor also highlighted the importance of poetic form in addition to a poem’s content by looking to the poetic heritage of the Muslim world.
“The iḥsān [excellence] of the poem is also super important too, and I want to make mention of that because I think it’s easy to be like “it’s just about the experience and the feeling”, and it is that, but there is iḥsān in the poetic experience too, and when we look at the poetry of the mystics of the past – I look at the tradition I’m connected to of my Grand Shaykh, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and how he wrote his sacred poetry – it was genius actually – every single poem. The collection of the diwan was usually named after an Arabic letter – every single poem begins with that letter, the rhyme scheme – it’s a whole other level of mastery. The poem and the form itself is the vehicle – we can’t get somewhere if we have a car with a broken wheel… so we do need the excellence – the more excellent the vehicle the easier it is for you to take us to your destination.
Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore was a pioneering American Beat / Sufi poet; find out more about his work at www.ecstaticxchange.com or on our socials, @ecstaticexchangepoetry. Lote Tree Press specialises in poetry from the Muslim world from a faith-based perspective, highlighting the rich poetic heritage of the Islamic world and amplifying the voices of Muslim poets writing today. Look out for the upcoming chapbook of the longlisted, shortlisted and winning poems to be published by Lote Tree Press.
