\n
Poet, fifth-grade teacher, graduate student, dancer, adventurous cook, and creator of videos are categories that help define but never confine Rajiv Mohabir \u201912. In each persona he is finely attuned to the rhythms of his life\u2019s 29 years. Languages and sacred stories, rivers and oceans, the diaspora of his Christian\/Hindu family, and the migration of humpback whales all fascinate him.<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cMy grandmother would tell these elaborate stories through song. It was really magical when I started to understand what she was saying,\u201d Mohabir recalls. \u201cMusic is the ancestor of poetry,\u201d he muses, and reminds us \u201cthat things are never really lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born in London of artistic Guyanese-Indian parents, Mohabir grew up in Queens\u2019s Richmond Hill neighborhood, Niagara Falls, and the tropical lushness of central Florida. He studied folksinging in India for a year and practices meditation. At the University of Florida, he switched from pre-med to religious studies, and then earned an M.S. in TESOL at Long Island University\u2013Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
His poetry earned him an invitation to a Voices of Our Nations workshop for writers of color. Pudding House Press named him a \u201cPoet of Note\u201d in 2009 and recently published his chapbook na bad-eye me<\/em>.<\/p>\nWhile pursuing his second master\u2019s degree\u2014an MFA in Creative Writing at Queens College\u2014Mohabir teaches Corona fifth-graders full-time in an English as a Second Language (ESL) program. On Fridays in his classroom at P.S. 92, his pupils recite their own poems. As he engages them in writing\u2019s craft and creativity, he says. \u201cNobody gets below a perfect score.\u201d For Mohabir, teaching ESL fits in with his aspiration to contribute to immigrant empowerment and immigrant rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way people can be moved to mutual understanding through poetry can be really impacting,\u201d he believes. \u201cIt\u2019s the coolest thing to use art for social change. If we can dream a better world, why not create it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Favorite books:<\/strong> poet Joy Harjo\u2019s How We Became Human<\/em>, Byrd Baylor\u2019s I\u2019m in Charge of Celebrations<\/em>, Coleman Barks\u2019 translations of Rumi\u2019s poetry, and Leslie Marmon Silko\u2019s novel Almanac of the Dead<\/em><\/p>\nMusical interests:<\/strong> \u201cThere\u2019s something about acoustic music that really drives me.\u201d<\/p>\nSurprising fact:<\/strong> \u201cWhen walking the beach with my nephew, I am able to summon sea creatures (I am very good at spotting wildlife).\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Name: Rajiv MohabirMajor: MFA, Creative Writing Year: 2012From: EnglandWhy QC: Because it is located in a borough that is the most linguistically diverse in the country, possibly even the world. Queens feels like a good fit for me as it’s the home of a second Indo-Caribbean Diaspora, and a place where I have the cultural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"page_category":[],"wf_page_folders":[137],"class_list":["post-679","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1964,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/679\/revisions\/1964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"page_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/page_category?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}