Poetry + Environmental Justice Reading featuring Samiya Bashir, Leila Chatti, Amir Rabiya

This reading’s theme was collectively chosen by members of the Poetry Coalition, of which Mizna is a member, and the is titled after the line “It is burning./ It is dreaming./ It is waking up.” from Linda Hogan’s poem, “Map.” The reading is co-presented with our friends at Moon Palace Books, an indie bookstore in Minneapolis.

>>HOW TO PARTICIPATE<<

The Zoom link will be sent out through Eventbrite the day before + day of the reading. In addition to the Zoom, this event will be livestreamed on Facebook.

>>ACCESSIBILITY<<

This reading will be live-captioned in English. An accessible .pdf of poems will be available to follow during the event, and the full program will be available for viewing post-event.

>>ABOUT POCO<<

This event is part of national Poetry Coalition programming and is supported by the Academy of American Poets with funds from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

More info on the Poetry Coalition and this year’s collaborative programming: https://bit.ly/3sWOjfS

>>ABOUT THE READERS<<

Amir Rabiyah is a trans and two-spirit disabled queer femme poet and writing coach. They were born in London, England to a mixed Cherokee and white mother and a Lebanese and Syrian father. Their work explores living life on the margins and at the intersections of multiple identities. Amir writes about living with chronic pain and illness, war, trauma, spirituality, healing, redemption–and speaks on silenced places. Amir’s first full collection poetry book, Prayers for My 17th Chromosome, available for through Sibling Rivalry Press. This debut collection was a finalist for the Triangle Publishing Award, and an ALA Over the Rainbow pick. Amir is also the co-editor of Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices and has published in numerous anthologies and journals. They currently live in North Carolina and believe domestic work, chanting Sufi prayers over a home cooked meal, and nurturing our community is crucial for revolution.

Leila Chatti was born in 1990 in Oakland, California. A Tunisian-American dual citizen, she has lived in the United States, Tunisia, and Southern France. She is the author of the debut full-length collection Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), on the longlist for the 2021 PEN Open Book Award, and the chapbooks Ebb (New-Generation African Poets) and Tunsiya/Amrikiya, the 2017 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press. She holds a B.A. from the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University and an M.F.A. from North Carolina State University, where she was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize. She currently serves as the Consulting Poetry Editor at the Raleigh Review and teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is the Mendota Lecturer in Poetry.

Samiya Bashir is the author of three books of poetry: Field Theories, and Gospel, and Where the Apple Falls. Sometimes she makes poems of dirt. Sometimes zeros and ones. Sometimes variously rendered text. Sometimes light. Her work has been widely published, performed, installed, printed, screened, and experienced. Bashir holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as Poet Laureate, and an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she received two Hopwood Poetry Awards. Bashir lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches at Reed College.