If we think about folk forms, they belong to disenfranchised people, people who have not been allowed access to the poetry of literature or the leisure time that comes with the pursuit of poetry. Instead, this is ceremony. This is a highly charged way to create a sacred space that isn't necessarily about God, but is about human experience at its most profound levels - whether that's love or grief, separation, or homeland. All are altered states.

Poetry is a popular genre in Afghanistan. If you turned on the radio, there would be a poetry program that would be as popular as The Real Housewives.

The truth is, terrorism flourishes in places of injustice rather than in places of poverty.

It's important to understand that violent Islam is only one face of violent religion.

The power of the voice in rap is about the expression of truth, rather than the expression of some kind of artifice.

My upbringing was pretty interesting. It was a rigorous, intellectual upbringing, but with the idea that we were a part of an important and legitimate enterprise. What that meant was sitting around the dinner table from a really early age with people from all different backgrounds who believed in God. When I was reporting in the wake of September 11th in Iraq and elsewhere, I felt I had the capacity to talk to people whose beliefs might sound outlandish to more secular journalists. I felt like I could be a translator between those two worlds.

Poetry allows me to write about what I don't know, whereas journalism demands a higher level of certainty to be worthy of being written.