My Poetry Corner August 2025 features the poem “Why Whales are Back in New York City” from the poetry collection Whale Aria by Rajiv Mohabir, published by Four Way Books (USA, 2023). His fourth book of poetry received the Gold Medal for Poetry from the Forward Indies, Bronze Medal from the Northern California Publishers and Authors, and finalist/Honorable Mention from the Eric Hoffer Award. All following excerpts of his poems are from this collection.

A queer poet, memoirist, and translator, Mohabir was born in London, England, to Indo-Guyanese parents: descendants of East Indian Indentured laborers to then British Guiana. Migrating to the USA as a kid, he grew up in New York City and Florida’s Greater Orlando Area. He holds a BA from the University of Florida in Religious Studies, an MSEd in TESOL from Long Island University of Brooklyn, and an MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Translation from Queens College of the City University of New York. He received his PhD in English from the University of Hawai‘i. He is currently an assistant professor of poetry in the Department of English at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Whale Aria was conceived in Hawai‘i after the poet first heard humpback whales singing to each other. “I felt it in my pituitary gland first. Then in my throat. A tightening and a deep reverberation,” said Mohabir in his craft essay “On Humpback Whale Song and Poetic Constraint,” published in The American Poetry Review, July/August 2023 Issue.

“Submerged, I opened my eyes and felt the song move through me. What they communicated to one another was a mystery to me, as it is to scientists still, but felt familiar in that it was as if the vibrations stimulated the noise production mechanisms of my own body…. It felt holy, like the cetacean vibrations were sacralizing the space through sound. I wanted to hear the songs again and again and again.”