To date there are only a handful of critical studies in Euro-American scholarship on Shi‘i intellectual engagements with the Qur’an. The few works that have been studied shape current understandings of the Twelver tafsir tradition as one where the authority of the Imams features prominently. According to this view, Shi‘i exegetes invoke the authority of the Imams by relying on their sayings and teachings as the sole source for elucidating the meanings of the verses. This view of the Twelver tafsir tradition presupposes a neat juxtaposition of sectarian identity and hermeneutical methods. I argue against this functionalist approach that valorizes sectarian identity as the primary determinant of hermeneutical desires and sensibilities. While it may be possible to notice certain patterns within the Twelver Shi‘i tafsir tradition where the Imams play a governing role, an examination of further sources resists such an approach. In this paper, I bring attention to a work that challenges a rigid characterization of Twelver Shi‘i exegesis: the only extant volume of a tenth century tafsir authored by al-Sharif al-Radi (d.1015C.E.), a prominent Shi‘i theologian, poet, and historian of Baghdad. He is remembered in the Sunni tradition as a renowned Arabic poet and in the Shi‘i tradition as the compiler of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib’s Nahj al-Balagha. His Qur’an commentary however, has received little attention. Titled “Haqa’iq al-Ta’wil fi Mutashabihat al-Tanzil”, literally “Hermeneutical Realities in [Uncovering] the Ambiguity of Revelation,” this text employs the traditionally Mu‘tazili approach of focusing on the Qur’an’s “ambiguous verses” as the primary site of interpretation. Departing from the Mu‘tazili exegetical method of theological discussion however, al-Radi argues that in order to disentangle the conundrums that populate the Qur’an, language, poetry, and metaphor were indispensable tools. I explore two larger conceptual questions in my examination of al-Radi’s distinctly literary approach to the Qur’an: How did the category of “ambiguous verses” serve as a shared idiom of communication for the scholarly elite of this era irrespective of their sectarian and religious affiliations? Second, what were the politics of taking a literary approach to the Qur’an in tenth century Baghdad, and how did they shape the discourse on its interpretation? I refer to a specific example from his tafsir to illustrate that al-Radi’s position as poet, exegete, theologian and grammarian provide an instructive glimpse of how these varied disciplines coalesced in his distinct interpretation.