Writing & Publications
Featured Publications
PhD Thesis
(Re)turning to the Poetic I/Eye: Towards a Literacy of Light
This award-winning arts-based dissertation is a personal, poetic, and pedagogical study into the kinship between poetic discourse and spiritual expression where I attend to the question: what does it mean to dwell poetically? (Heidegger, 1971; Hölderin, 1984).
The award committee for the ARTS PhD Graduate Award at CSSE describes Dr. Rajabali’s dissertation as “a beautifully written meditation on poetry, spirituality, and the quest for knowledge”.
Lingering with the Works of Ted T. Aoki:
Historical and Contemporary Significance for Curriculum Research and Practice
This unique collection of essays from emerging and established curriculum theory scholars documents individuals’ personal encounters and lingering interactions with Ted T. Aoki and his scholarship. Dr. Rajabali contributed her essay “Whirling with Aoki at the Cross of Horizontal and Vertical Intentions: A Poet’s Pondering With/in Language and Light.”
Lingering in Leggoian Light:
Contemplating Carl Leggo’s Momentous Mentorship
My PhD supervisor and mentor, Carl Leggo, died of cancer on March 7th, 2019. In this essay, I trace the personal, poetic, intellectual, and spiritual journey of his momentous mentorship. In the absence of his physical being, there is still a profound presence, and what I have come to know as pedagogical light.
Here, through prose and poetry, I reflect on Carl’s wisdom and how he saw the breadth of my pedagogical being—the whole of the moon.
Selected Writing
Papers
A Creative Pedagogue's Inquiry Through Images: Does It Have Wings?
In this photo essay, I enact how a creative pedagogue engages with artistic practice and contemplative inquiry. As a poet, at home in words, photography represents a creative risk. This vulnerability is felt in the sharing of the work through the lens of (re)search. Hence, I ask: Does it have wings?
Epiphany in Waiting
In this lyrical essay, I begin by enacting a walk I took with my mother along the ocean. I poetically dwell in a sensual phenomenological inquiry where I attune to the experience of this walk as it is unfolding: the images, the colours, the gestures, the scents, the sounds and the silences.
Rhizome (Re)Imagined: A Rhizome in the Sky
In this poetic methodological rumination, I explore the source and the spirit of my artistic desire. This poem speaks to the generative power of the metaphor in arts-based (re)search while crossing and merging the boundaries of art, spirituality and education for personal transformation.
On Writing a Poem: A Phenomenological Inquiry
This piece is a personal and poetic exploration on the kinship between phenomenology and poetry as being evocative representations that place primacy on the sensual experiences of living and being in the world.
Poetry
Juniper Poetry Journal
Juniper Poetry Journal seeks poems that bring the reader back to themselves and leave them with a deeper understanding of the world(s) in which they live. Volume 2 – Issue 3 features two poems by Anar: Brushing of Wings & Reciprocity.
I throw a rock into the sea / and watch it skip only once / radiating sudden circular lines outwards / like the sun that tenderly plays diamond light / on the water’s surface…
Poetry: Ali
Gardens are a place / where the ephemeral meets / the eternal /where the eternal meets
the hand of man… Originally published in The Journal of Poetry Therapy: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Practice, Theory, Research and Education, Volume 29, 2016 – Issue 3.
ESSAYS
Dwelling in My Father’s Garden: The Fragrance of Love
A poet reflects on the spiritual ideals she learned from her dad’s love for nature and gardens. Published as a companion essay to Anar’s piece “Dwelling in My Father’s Garden”, The Ismaili Canada Magazine Sustainability Issue, Summer 2020, pg. 82-83.
VIEW ENTRY ON ACADEMIA.EDU
VIEW MAGAZINE ISSUE
VIEW ESSAY ON THE ISMAILI WEBSITE
BOOK CHAPTERS
The Giving of Grace: Dwelling in the Poetic I/Eye
This poetic interlude is a personal, spiritual and philosophical rendering of a poet’s seeing, being, and becoming through verse. In L. Butler-Kisber, J. J. Guiney Yallop, M. Stewart & S. Wiebe (Eds.), Poetic inquiry of reflections and renewal (pp. 173-178). Lunenberg, NS: Macintyre Purcell Publishing.
Sandals in the Snow: How Poetry Winters a Memory
In this piece, I offer a poem and theorize its layered meanings as inspired by the (re)generative potential of poetic awareness, in the very givenness that poetry can bring. In P. Sameshima, K. James, C. Leggo & A. Fidyk (Eds.), Poetic inquiry III: Enchantments of place (pp. 171-178). Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press.
The Melody of My Breathing: Toward the Poetics of Being
Anar’s submission to Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Inspiration/Imagination/Interconnection, which explores curriculum studies as an interdisciplinary field. E. Hasebe-Ludt & C. Leggo (Eds.), Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Inspiration/Imagination/Interconnection (pp. 268-279). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars.