Lee Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics: Naomi Shihab Nye and Lena Tuffaha
2020-04-29 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | UW – Intellectual House, 4249 Whitman Ct NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, United States
The Lee Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics is thrilled to welcome Naomi Shihab Nye to the University of Washington on Wednesday, April 29, 2020. We are also excited to welcome Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award, who will be in conversation with Naomi after her reading. A reception will be held from 6:00-6:30 in wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ–Intellectual House. From 6:30-8:00, the reading/conversation and book signing will follow.
Many thanks to Suhad Khatib for granting permission to use her beautiful work, “The Return” in the poster. And many thanks to Dilara Elbir for her design.
Artist Bios:
Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent 40 years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity. Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes. Her most recent book is Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners. Her new book of poems is entitled The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions Ltd., April 2019).
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She earned a BA in Comparative Literature at the University of Washington and an MFA in Poetry at the Rainier Writing Workshop of Pacific Lutheran University She is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Water & Salt, winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry, and the chapbooks Arab in Newsland (2016) and Letters from the Interior (2019). Her work has been published in journals including Blackbird, Kenyon Review Online, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, TriQuarterly, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day feature. Her poems have been widely anthologized and have received the Robert Watson Literary Prize and multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She is the recipient of a 2019 Artist Trust Fellowship, and has served as the inaugural Poet-In-Residence at Open Books: A Poem Emporium in Seattle. You can learn more about her work at www.lenakhalaftuffaha.com.
Suhad Khatib (b. 1979) is a multimedia artist who was born in Oman, raised in Jordan and been living in the US for the past 14 years. Her work was shown in Montreal, Connecticut, Berkeley, New York, San Francisco and Amman. She describes her work as “an intentional study on healing and identity.” Suhad is also a public speaker on the subject of Palestine, theology, feminism and community organizing. Her practice extends to design and filmmaking. Notably, she is the designer behind prominent social justice campaigns that have shaped our understanding of recent history like: #Ferguson2Palestine, #ISupportRasmea and #ShowMe15. In film, she was one of the founders of the film industry in Jordan, wrote and directed multiple short films, finished residency programs by Sundance Film Institute, Dubai Film Connection, and Euromed Audiovisual Program. Most notably, she was the co-writer of the most watched Jordanian comedy series! Suhad currently resides in San Francisco, CA. https://suhadkhatib.com/

SYZYGY reading series: with Janan Alexandra and Others
2020-05-22 16:00 - 17:00 UTC
SYZYGY reading series: ross gay, marlee grace, janan alexandra, l. renée, juliet johnson, essence london, sophie whitmore

When: Fri, May 22, 4pm – 5pm

Description: https://wthetrees.earth/syzygy

On Zoom at 7pm EST:
Register here: https://iu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEud-moqDIoHtd4KHXGieDlIabxKNtUdJ8R

Team Mashallah Poetry Eid
2020-05-23 15:00 - 16:00 UTC
Team Mashallah Poetry Eid
with Angel Nafis, Fatimah Asghar, Safia Elhillo, Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar

When: Sat, May 23, 3pm – 4pm

E-mail: teammashallahpoetry@gmail.com for Zoom invite!

Justice Beats
2020-05-30 10:00 - 16:00 UTC
JUSTICE BEATS

SCHEDULE / EASTERN STANDARD TIME!

The Peace Poets / 1 pm. (10am PST)
DJ Sarouna / 1:15pm (10:15am PST)
Clarissa Bitar / 1:50pm (10:50am PST
Ty Defoe / 2:15pm (11:15am PST)
John Scott-Richardson / 2:35pm (11:35am PST)
Dakota Camacho / 2:50pm (11:50am PST)
Rebel Betty / 3:15pm (12:15pm PST)
Emmanual Candelario / Peace Poets / 3:55pm (12:55pm PST)
Yadira De La Riva / 4:05pm (1:05pm PST)
Tef Poe / 4:20pm (1:20pm PST)
Agile One / 5:05pm (2:05pm PST)
Pacia Elaine / 5:35pm (2:35pm PST)
Makeda Kravitz / 5:45pm (2:45pm PST)
Frantz Jerome / Peace Poets / 6:20pm (3:20pm PST)
MarshaMayI? / 6:25pm (3:25pm PST)
Lyriq Tye / 6:55pm (3:55pm PST)

https://www.justicebeats.com/lineup

Windows/Shababeek: A Sukoon Virtual Reading
2020-06-06 11:00 - 13:00 UTC
Windows/Shababeek: A Sukoon Virtual Reading

AANM presents a Sukoon bilingual live reading around the theme of Windows/Shababeek, curated and hosted by Sukoon founding editor Rewa Zeinati, and featuring an incredible lineup of Arab writers and poets: Zeyn Joukhadar, Zeina Hashem Beck, Philip Metres, George Abraham, Sahar Mustafa, Zeina Azzam (Arabic) and Farah Chamma (Arabic).

We’ve spent the last several weeks observing life go back and forth to stillness, isolation, fear or healing, all through the windows of our homes (if we are privileged enough to have them). We’ve pondered other people’s lives existing behind their own windows. What joy or confusion or horror was multiplied? Join us for this bilingual poetry and fiction virtual live reading in collaboration with Sukoon, exploring—in the most broad or intimate sense—the various and infinite ways we interpret the barriers, filters or open fields we call “windows” and how these inform the light and shadows we allow or dissipate.

This virtual reading will be streamed live on AANM’s Facebook page, so be sure to RSVP to the Facebook event to be notified and tune in when the livestream goes up.

A Virtual Literary Panel - 6-12-2020 - Palestine Museum US
2020-06-12 09:00 - 10:00 UTC
Literary Panel 6/12

Description
Leading Palestinian Writers Read & Discuss their Recent works

Time

Jun 12, 2020 12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

A Virtual Literary Panel - 6-26-2020 - Palestine Museum US
2020-06-26 09:00 - 10:00 UTC
Leading Palestinian Writers/Poets Read & Discuss their Recent works
Moderated by Dina Omar
Poet: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Novelist: Sahar Mustafah
12:00 PM 1:00 PM EST (9am – 10am PST)
Please click here to register for this event.

Live Reading & Discussion with Mona Kareem
2020-08-13 15:00 - 17:00 UTC
6 p.m. EDT, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020
Live Reading & Discussion with Mona Kareem
Free, livestreamed on Facebook
RSVP to Facebook event
Join AANM artist-in-residence Mona Kareem for a live reading from her poetry collection Crossover, and discussion with AANM director Dr. Diana Abouali.
Throughout her residency, taking place remotely, Kareem is finalizing Crossover, a poetry collection that touches on themes particular to Arab experience/s in the United States: the loss or gain of language, the weight of a marked body passing through airports, the lingua of immigration and bureaucratic violence, and the fetishization of Arab sexuality in visual culture and colonial imaginary. The poems cross a range of narratives, working beyond the typical family-story, as many of us have arrived alone to this continent. They explore what this loneliness entails, especially for the bilingual artist.
Mona Kareem is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Femme Ghosts (Publication Studio, 2019), a trilingual chapbook. Her work has been translated into nine languages and published in anthologies and periodicals, including Brooklyn Rail, Michigan Quarterly Review, Ambit, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Asymptote, Words Without Borders, Poetry International, PEN English, Modern Poetry in Translation, Two Lines and Specimen. She has held fellowships with Poetry International, BANFF Center, Norwich Center and Forum Transregionale Studien. Kareem has been a featured writer at festivals and conferences in Cairo, Istanbul, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Seoul, Copenhagen and across the United States. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from SUNY Binghamton, and has taught at SUNY Binghamton, Rutgers, Bronx Community College and the University of Maryland.

Related event: Aug. 30: Virtual Poetry Workshop with Mona Kareem

Virtual Poetry Workshop with Mona Kareem
2020-08-30 09:00 - 11:00 UTC
12 – 2 p.m. EDT, Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020
Virtual Poetry Workshop with Mona Kareem
Free
Registration required by Aug. 13
Join AANM artist-in-residence, poet, and translator Mona Kareem for a one-day Virtual Poetry Workshop! This workshop is for adult writers and teens age 17+ who are committed to using poetry as a medium to explore and intertwine the personal with the political. Those interested in themes, practices, theory and/or poetics of translation in relation to expression and narrative are especially welcome to join.
Mona Kareem will provide participants with two texts to review as well as a writing prompt prior to the workshop (via email). The workshop will unfold, via Zoom, with a close reading of selected texts, followed by an open reading and discussion of participants’ poems.
Workshop timeline:
Aug. 13: Registration deadline; limited to 10 participants
Aug. 16: Poet will provide participants with selected reading texts and a writing prompt
Aug. 23: Writing prompt submission deadline
Aug. 30: Workshop from 12 – 2 p.m.
Register by Aug. 13 to secure your spot in the workshop!
Mona Kareem is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Femme Ghosts (Publication Studio, 2019), a trilingual chapbook. Her work has been translated into nine languages and published in anthologies and periodicals, including Brooklyn Rail, Michigan Quarterly Review, Ambit, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Asymptote, Words Without Borders, Poetry International, PEN English, Modern Poetry in Translation, Two Lines and Specimen. She has held fellowships with Poetry International, BANFF Center, Norwich Center and Forum Transregionale Studien. Kareem has been a featured writer at festivals and conferences in Cairo, Istanbul, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Seoul, Copenhagen and across the United States. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from SUNY Binghamton, and has taught at SUNY Binghamton, Rutgers, Bronx Community College and the University of Maryland.

Related event: Aug. 13: Live Reading & Discussion with Mona Kareem

Simon Shaheen & Naomi Shihab Nye in Concert + Talkback
2020-09-18 16:30 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
7:30 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 18, 2020
Simon Shaheen & Naomi Shihab Nye in Concert + Talkback
Free with RSVP; $10 suggested donation
RSVP for streaming link
Let music and poetry end your week on a sweet note with a night of exclusive performances by world renowned artists, musician Simon Shaheen and writer/poet Naomi Shihab Nye, followed by a live talkback!
Simon Shaheen dazzles his listeners as he deftly leaps from traditional Arabic sounds to jazz and Western classical styles. His soaring technique, melodic ingenuity, and unparalleled grace have earned him international acclaim as a virtuoso on the ‘oud and violin. As a composer, Shaheen has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Jerome Foundation, Continental Harmony, and Yellow Springs Institute. In addition to performing with his two bands, Qantara and the Near Eastern Music Ensemble, Shaheen tours as a solo artist internationally and as a lecturer throughout the academic world promoting awareness to Arab music through numerous lectures and workshop presentations. Shaheen is currently an instructor at Berklee School of Music, and directs the Arabic Music Retreat each summer at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a Palestinian refugee and her mother an American of German and Swiss descent, and Nye spent her adolescence in both Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas. Nye is the recipient of numerous honors and awards for her work, including the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Book Critics Circle and the Paterson Poetry Prize, among others. The Poetry Foundation named Nye the Young People’s Poet Laureate for 2019 to 2021, making her the first Arab American to earn this honor. Known for poetry that lends a fresh perspective to ordinary events, people, and objects, Nye’s experience of both cultural difference and different cultures has influenced much of her work. Nye is also considered one of the leading female poets of the American Southwest. In addition to poetry, Nye has written fiction for children, poetry and song recordings, and poetry translations. She has also published a book of essays and edited several anthologies.

Virtual Visit with Naomi Shihab Nye
2020-09-24 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Naomi Shihab Nye
09/24/2020 – 6:30PM
Benefit for PONGO Poetry Project One of this country’s foremost poets, a poet who has had her work published in collections for forty years now, Naomi Shihab Nye does a virtual visit to support the vital work of non-profit Pongo Teen Writing’s Poetry Project in a two-part
program. Naomi Shihab Nye is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, is the author of many books of poems, including some for younger readers. Her most recent is last year’s The Tiny Journalist (BOA).
“On every page, Shihab Nye’s insistent call is the same: people, all people, deserve to live safe and healthy lives, free from fear and violence. She mourns, rages, takes politicians to task, but always lands on the side of compassion.” – Shelf Awareness.

Three acclaimed Seattle-area writers including Lena Tuffaha
2020-10-01 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join us for an evening with three acclaimed Seattle-area writers, all published by Red Hen Press!
Kristen Millares Young is the author of the novel Subduction, a Paris Review staff pick called “whip-smart” by the Washington Post, a “brilliant debut” by the Seattle Times and “utterly unique and important” by Ms. Magazine. Her essays, investigations and reviews appear in the Washington Post, Literary Hub, the Guardian, and elsewhere, as well as the anthologies Latina Outsiders, Pie & Whiskey and Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19. She was the researcher for the New York Times team that produced “Snow Fall,” which won a Pulitzer Prize. From 2018 to 2020, Kristen served as Prose Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House.

Amber Flame is a writer, composer and performer whose work has garnered artistic merit residencies with Hedgebrook, The Watering Hole, Vermont Studio Center, and Yefe Nof. Flame served as the 2017-2019 Poet-in-Residence at Hugo House. Her first collection, Ordinary Cruelty, was published in 2017 by Write Bloody Press, and her second collection is forthcoming from Red Hen Press.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. Her first book of poems, Water & Salt won the Washington State Book Award and was a finalist for the Arab American Book Awards. Her chapbook, Arab in Newsland, won the 2016 Two Sylvias Press Prize, and her most recent chapbook, Letters from the Interior, was published by Diode editions. Her poems and essays have received the Robert Watson Literary Prize and been published in Adroit journal, Jubilat, Kenyon Review Online, the New England Review, the Rumpus, Southern Humanities Review, and World Literature Today, among others.
Third Place Books Events Code of Conduct: Third Place Books is committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of event attendees and guest authors, during both online and in-store events. By registering for this event, you are agreeing to refrain from engaging in inappropriate behavior and harassment of any kind throughout the course of this event (i.e. racial slurs, profanity, hate speech, spam comments, etc.). Please note that any participants who engage in inappropriate behavior or harassment of any kind will be immediately ejected from this event.

Spotlight Poetry: Gabrielle Bates, Julia Guez, Luther Hughes, Dujie Tahat, and Tess Taylor
2020-10-07 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join us for a celebration of all things verse with visiting poets Julia Guez and Tess Taylor, along with local favorites and cohosts of the Poet Salon Podcast Gabrielle Bates, Luther Hughes, and Dujie Tahat. This event will be held on Zoom and broadcast simultaneously through Facebook Live. To RSVP to the Zoom call, click “Tickets” found at this link: https://hugohouse.org/events/spotlight-poetry-julia-guez-tess-taylor-gabrielle-bates-and-keetje-kuipers/ Link to the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/hugo-house/spotlight-poetry-gabrielle-bates-julia-guez-luther-hughes-dujie-tahat-and-tess-t/323224289001397/ ———— ABOUT THE READERS JULIA GUEZ’s poetry, essays, interviews and translations have appeared in Poetry, the Guardian, PEN Poetry Series, the Kenyon Review, BOMB, and the Brooklyn Rail. She has been awarded the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize, a Fulbright Fellowship and the John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize in Translation. Guez holds degrees from Rice and Columbia. For the last decade, she has worked with Teach For America; she’s currently a senior managing director of program implementation there. She also teaches creative writing at Rutgers and writes poetry reviews for Publishers Weekly. — TESS TAYLOR is the author of five collections of poetry. Her chapbook, The Misremembered World, was selected by Eavan Boland for the Poetry Society of America’s inaugural chapbook fellowship, and the San Francisco Chronicle called her first book, The Forage House, “stunning.” Her second book, Work & Days, was named one of the 10 best books of poetry of 2016 by the New York Times. Taylor’s work has appeared in the Atlantic, the Kenyon Review, Poetry, Tin House, the Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere. In spring 2020 she published two books of poems: Last West, part of Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures, at the Museum of Modern Art, and Rift Zone, from Red Hen Press. She teaches at University of California, Davis. — GABRIELLE BATES is a poet from Birmingham, Alabama, currently living in Seattle, where she works for Open Books: A Poem Emporium and cohosts the podcast The Poet Salon. Her poems and poetry comics have appeared or are forthcoming in the New Yorker, Poetry, American Poetry Review, and the Best of the Net anthology, among other venues. — LUTHER HUGHES, born and raised Seattle, is the author of A Shiver in the Leaves (BOA Editions, 2022) and the chapbook Touched (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018). Founder of Shade Literary Arts and executive editor for the The Offing, he cohosts The Poet Salon podcast with Gabrielle Bates and Dujie Tahat. His work has been published in Poetry, Paris Review, The Rumpus, New England Review, and others. He is the recipient of the 2020 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize. Luther received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. — DUJIE TAHAT is a Filipino-Jordanian immigrant living in Washington State. They are the author of two chapbooks: Here I Am O My God, selected by Fady Joudah for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship, and Salat, selected by Cornelius Eady as winner of the Tupelo Press Sunken Garden Chapbook Award. Their poems have been published or are forthcoming in Poetry, Poetry NW, ZYZZVA, Best New Poets, Asian American Literary Review and elsewhere. Dujie has earned fellowships from Hugo House, Jack Straw Writing Program, and the Poetry Foundation, as well as a work-study scholarship from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. They serve as a poetry editor for Moss and Homology Lit and cohost The Poet Salon podcast.
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Graywolf Literary Salon: Conversations from Home, feat. Khaled Mattawa
2020-10-08 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Enjoy an evening of intimate conversations about home, language, and imagining a better world
Step inside the world of books and get a view straight from the desks of our authors and editors. Join Graywolf Press and four of our outstanding writers as they welcome us into their homes for an evening of conversations about place and imagination during this unprecedented moment in history.
The Graywolf Literary Salon will feature Natalie Diaz (Postcolonial Love Poem), Roy G. Guzmán (Catrachos), Khaled Mattawa (Fugitive Atlas), and Kevin Young (Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts & Fake News).
Admission is free, but we encourage you to give a donation of $25 or more to support Graywolf Press. All proceeds benefit Graywolf’s New Chapter Campaign, a $3 million initiative to strengthen our publishing program through investments in editorial, marketing, audience development, engagement, and infrastructure.
Register here: https://graywolfpress.salsalabs.org/2020salon/index.html
7:30pm CT
About the Authors
NATALIE DIAZ is the author of Postcolonial Love Poem, a finalist for the Forward Prize, and When My Brother Was an Aztec, winner of an American Book Award. She has received many honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship, and a United States Artists Fellowship. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe.
ROY G. GUZMÁN is the author of Catrachos, and has received a 2019 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. Raised in Miami, they live in Minneapolis.
KHALED MATTAWA is the author of five collections of poetry and is the translator of eleven books of contemporary Arabic poetry. He has been awarded several Pushcart Prizes and the PEN Award for Literary Translation, as well as a Guggenheim and a MacArthur fellowship. His forthcoming collection, Fugitive Atlas, will be published in October 2020. (and he’s Libyan)
KEVIN YOUNG is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, including The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, and Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts & Fake News, longlisted for the National Book Award. He is also the editor of African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song, appearing September. Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and poetry editor of the New Yorker, he was named a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020.

My Name is the People of Palestine: cultural event
2020-10-24 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
“My Name is the People of Palestine” cultural event will take place on October 24-25 at 10:00am PST featuring Palestinian music and culture.

About this Event

Join us for a free online concert on Oct 24th-25th, 2020 at 10am PST/ 8pm Jerusalem to globally celebrate Palestinian music and culture together.
Music director Saleheddine Bedoui will be leading Aswat Ensemble with these featured artists:

Amal Murkus
Boutros Rouhana
Charbel Rouhana
Shadia Mansour
Reem Talhami
George Bisharat

Featured Poets:

Mourid Barghouti
Tamim Barghouti
Anis Chouehene

Two new songs by Boutros and Charbel Rouhana will premier at the concert.
This event will be streamed live on Facebook, Zoom, and Youtube, reserve your front-row seat and please share.
Translation will emailed to you and made available at Zawaya.org.
This concert is sponsored by: Zawaya, Middle East Children’s Alliance, and Palestinian Youth Movement.

Dodge Poetry Festival: The Compassion of Hard Truths: Zeina Hashem Beck and Others
2020-10-31 09:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
The Compassion of Hard Truths: Zeina Hashem Beck, Martín Espada, Paisley Rekdal, Seema Reza. Moderated by Martin J. Farawell
Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet with a BA and an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut. She won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize for her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts (Bauhan Publishing 2017), about which Naomi Shihab Nye wrote, “Everything Arabic we treasure comes alive in these poems. Readers will feel restored to so many homes, revived, amazed. Zeina Hashem Beck writes with a brilliant, absolutely essential voice.”
http://www.zeinahashembeck.com/

Grateful Every Day: Writing Poems Together — Youth Workshop with Naomi Shihab Nye
2020-11-14 11:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Online via Zoom
Registration required
How can poems help our lives? Naomi Shihab Nye, Young People’s Poet Laureate, leads this friendly writing workshop for students in grades 6, 7 and 8 — no experience in poetry necessary. This online workshop, taking place via Zoom, will involve simple strategies for writing around the general topics of attention and gratitude, with some on-the-spot note-taking and sharing of ideas and work. After two hours, participants will have rough drafts of at least 3-4 poems of their own. Bring paper and pen. Bring an open mind about your own writing powers and potential. We are all richer in resources than we think we are. How do we welcome some of our thoughts and insights onto the page? No stress. You don’t have to dress up! Register for the workshop
Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, lived in Jerusalem and now lives in San Antonio, Texas. Palestinian American, she started writing poems at the age of 6 and believes “we are all living in poems.” She has published more than 30 books of poetry and prose and conducted writing workshops all over the world since college days. Nye was named by The Poetry Foundation as the Young People’s Poet Laureate for 2019-2021, making her the first Arab American to earn this honor.

Palestine Writes Conference
2020-12-02 - 2020-12-06
This conference is 4 days packed full of poets, authors, artists, cooking, comedy and more!
Susan Abulhawa, Amer Zahr and his mother, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Lena Tuffaha, Randa Jarrar, Angela Davis, Isabella Hammad, Remi Kanazi, Acrafty Arab, Wafa Ghnaim and that’s not even the half of it.
You must check out the full program so that you don’t miss a thing!
www.palestinewrites.org/program
and be sure to register and support in advance:
www.palestinewrites.vfairs.com

Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series @ Central Washington University (Online)
2021-01-26 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series @ Central Washington University (Online)

Dujie Tahat (he/they) is a Filipino-Jordanian immigrant living in Washington state. They are the author of Here I Am O My God and Salat, winner of the Tupelo Press Sunken Garden Chapbook Award. With Luther Hughes and Gabrielle Bates, they cohost The Poet Salon podcast. dujietahat.com
Jourdan Imani Keith is an essayist, playwright, naturalist, educator, and storyteller whose work blends the textures of political, personal and natural landscapes to offer voices from the margins of American lives. Keith has performed nationally and internationally, including on TEDx. Jourdan Keith is Founder and Director of Urban Wilderness Project. jourdankeith.wordpress.com

To Palestine With Love - The poetry and art of Najwa Kawar Farah
2021-01-31 09:00 - 10:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
A reading of poems and a review of artwork by Palestinian writer, poet, and artist Najwa Kawar Farah, followed by audience discussion
Najwa Kawar Farah is a Palestinian writer who has contributed to Palestinian and Arabicliterature for several decades. The bulk of her publications are short stories, novels and poems. Najwa was born in Nazareth and lived in Haifa until 1965, and then in two West Bank cities, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Najwa also lived in Lebanon, the UK and Canada. She passed away in Canada in 2015.
Najwa’s life experiences in Palestine and the Middle East, provided her with the political, historical, and socio-cultural milieu from which she drew and developed her characters.
Most of her protagonists are Palestinians, mainly ’ordinary’ people especially refugees uprooted from their homes and homeland, who seek answers to their individual and collective historical predicament. Many of these protagonists are resilient women, who in addition to their political oppression encounter social discrimination. Her stories and novels come in eleven collections in Arabic. A number of these have been translated into English.
About the Readers/Moderators
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. Currently she works as publications editor at the think tank, Arab Center Washington DC. Her chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, will be published by The Poetry Box in 2021. Zeina’s poems appear/will appear in Pleiades, Passager, Sukoon Magazine, Mizna, Cordite Poetry Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Barzakh: A Literary Magazine, Infinite Rust, Heartwood Literary Magazine, Lunch Ticket, The Fourth River, Split This Rock, Voice Male, and the edited volumes Tales from Six Feet Apart (2021),Bettering American Poetry (2019), Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees (2019), The Poeming Pigeon (2017), Write Like You’re Alive 2017, Gaza Unsilenced (2015), and Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves (2008). She volunteers for organizations that promote Palestinian rights and the civil rights of vulnerable communities in Alexandria, Virginia, where she lives, and is a mentor for We Are Not Numbers, a writing program for youth in Gaza. Zeina holds an M.A. in Arabic literature from Georgetown University, an M.A. in sociology from George Mason University, and a B.A. in psychology from Vassar College.
Sahar Mustafah
Sahar Mustafah is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, an inheritance she explores in her fiction. Her first novel The Beauty of Your Face (W.W. Norton, 2020) was named a 2020 Notable Book and Editor’s Choice by New York Times Book Review, a Los Angeles Times United We Read selection, one of Marie Claire Magazine’s 2020 Best Fiction by Women, and a Great Group Reads for National Reading Group Month. It was long-listed for the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize, and was a finalist for Chicago Writers Association Best Book of the Year award and the Chicago Review of Books award. Her short story collection Code of the West was the winner of the 2016 Willow Books Fiction Award. Her stories have earned a Distinguished Story citation from Best American Short Stories 2016, First Place in Fiction from the Guild Literary Complex of Chicago, and three Pushcart Prize nominations, among other honors. Mustafah earned her MFA from Columbia College Chicago where she was the recipient of the David Friedman Award for Best Fiction. She writes and teaches outside of Chicago.

Reflection Session: Alert! with Andrea Assaf
2021-02-09 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
FREE with RSVP
Reflection Sessions are live, interactive, online events led by Arab American theatre artist and AANM artist-in-residence Andrea Assaf, on the second Tuesday of each month this year, leading up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Each session is grounded in a performance excerpt from Eleven Reflections on September*, with special guest artists who share their work, and engage in a “back stage” conversation about the themes of the month.
This February session will feature the poem Alert! by Andrea Assaf, and explore themes of surveillance, Islamophobia and drone technology in the post-9/11 era. Special guest announcement coming soon!
For questions, e-mail Kathryn Grabowski, Curator of Public Programs at kgrabowski@accesscommunity.org
*Eleven Reflections on September is a poetry/spoken word, multimedia performance on Arab American experience, Wars on/of Terror, and “the constant, quiet rain of death amidst beauty” that each autumn brings in a post-9/11 world. The annual witnessing of autumn leaves becomes a metaphor for the fallen. This trans-disciplinary project includes performances with interactive media design and live music; community dialogues; visual arts exhibits; open mics, panels and opportunities for action through partnerships with peace organizations. In 2021, this project will be re-created as a large-scale, community-based, devised performance directed by Andrea Assaf, engaging Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) and Muslim American artists and allies in San Antonio, Texas, commissioned by The Carver.

Lee Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics: Naomi Shihab Nye and Lena Tuffaha - 2021
2021-04-29 17:00 - 18:00 UTC | UW – Intellectual House, 4249 Whitman Ct NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, United States
Last year saw the cancellation of the 3rd Annual Lee Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics due to the ongoing pandemic. While we’re still unable to gather in person, this year the University of Washington English Department and the Lee Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics are thrilled to host Naomi Shihab Nye on Thursday, April 29, 2021, 5:00-6:30 PM (PT). We are also excited to welcome Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award, who will be in conversation with Naomi following her reading. We’re grateful to graduating senior Owen Oliver who will be offering a welcome/land acknowledgment prior to the reading. Please join us for an evening of poetry and conversation with these wonderful writers.
The University of Washington is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, and activities. If any accommodations are needed in the completion and submission of this form please contact UW English Department; 206-543-9552; Karla Tofte, ktofte@uw.edu.
All registrants will be entered into a drawing to win one copy of Naomi’s and Lena’s most recent books.
Many thanks to Suhad Khatib for granting permission to use her beautiful work, “The Return” in the poster. And many thanks to Dilara Elbir for her design.
Artist Bios:
Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent 40 years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity. Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes. Her most recent book is Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners. Her new book of poems is entitled The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions Ltd., April 2019).
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She earned a BA in Comparative Literature at the University of Washington and an MFA in Poetry at the Rainier Writing Workshop of Pacific Lutheran University She is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Water & Salt, winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry, and the chapbooks Arab in Newsland (2016) and Letters from the Interior (2019). Her work has been published in journals including Blackbird, Kenyon Review Online, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, TriQuarterly, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day feature. Her poems have been widely anthologized and have received the Robert Watson Literary Prize and multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She is the recipient of a 2019 Artist Trust Fellowship, and has served as the inaugural Poet-In-Residence at Open Books: A Poem Emporium in Seattle. You can learn more about her work at www.lenakhalaftuffaha.com.
Suhad Khatib (b. 1979) is a multimedia artist who was born in Oman, raised in Jordan and been living in the US for the past 14 years. Her work was shown in Montreal, Connecticut, Berkeley, New York, San Francisco and Amman. She describes her work as “an intentional study on healing and identity.” Suhad is also a public speaker on the subject of Palestine, theology, feminism and community organizing. Her practice extends to design and filmmaking. Notably, she is the designer behind prominent social justice campaigns that have shaped our understanding of recent history like: #Ferguson2Palestine, #ISupportRasmea and #ShowMe15. In film, she was one of the founders of the film industry in Jordan, wrote and directed multiple short films, finished residency programs by Sundance Film Institute, Dubai Film Connection, and Euromed Audiovisual Program. Most notably, she was the co-writer of the most watched Jordanian comedy series! Suhad currently resides in San Francisco, CA. https://suhadkhatib.com/

Poetry + Environmental Justice Reading featuring Samiya Bashir, Leila Chatti, Amir Rabiya
2021-05-15 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Mizna is proud to present a reading exploring poetry and environmental justice featuring the powerful poets Samiya Bashir, Leila Chatti, and Amir Rabiyah.

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.

Poet Zeina Hashem Beck [afikra Conversations]
2021-05-25 09:00 - 10:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join us as we interview poet Zeina Hashem Beck on our afikra Conversations series on May 25
Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her writing covers a variety of topics: Arab culture, home, exile, family narratives, language, the body, love, and faith. Her poetry often exists at the intersections of the personal & the political, the divine & the profane, the self & the other. She is interested in poetry that creates small bridges and insists on loving the broken world. Her third poetry collection, titled O, will be published by Penguin Books in Summer 2022. Her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts, won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. She’s also the author of two chapbooks: 3arabi Song, winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize, and There Was and How Much There Was, a smith|doorstop Laureate’s Choice. Her first book, To Live in Autumn, won the 2013 Backwaters Prize. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poetry, Ploughshares, World Literature Today, The Southeast Review, The Adroit Journal, Triquarterly, the Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. Zeina invented The Duet, a bilingual poetic form where English and Arabic exist separately and in relationship to each other. Her poem “Maqam” won Poetry Magazine’s 2017 Frederick Bock Prize. She lives in Dubai, where she has founded the poetry open mic night PUNCH.

afikra has a series of fabulous interviews that can be found here: https://www.afikra.com/events

Poetry Talk with Palestinian-American Poet, Zeina Azzam at MPP
2021-06-06 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join us as we have the privilege to welcome Palestinian American poet Zeina Azzam, one of the many poets who continue to tell the Palestinian story, as she prepares to launch a new poetry book titled Bayna Bayna, In-Between. Zeina will share with us recitations of poems from her publication followed by a conversation with our guest moderator, Curator Emerita of Galley Al-Quds, Dagmar Painter, in which they will explore Zeina’s stories and inspirations, and answer questions about her experiences as a daughter of refugees, an immigrant, and a Palestinian American poet at this moment in the United States.

Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, editor, and community activist. Her poems appear in literary journals and edited volumes including Bettering American Poetry, Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees, Gaza Unsilenced, Pleiades Magazine, Split This Rock, Passager Journal, Mizna, and Sukoon Magazine. Her chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, was published in May 2021. She holds an MA in Arabic literature from Georgetown University.

Poet Hayan Charara [afikra Conversations]
2021-06-08 09:00 - 10:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join us as we interview poet Hayan Charara on our afikra Conversations series on June 8.

Hayan Charara is a poet, children’s book author, essayist, and editor. His poetry books are Something Sinister (2016), The Sadness of Others (2006), The Alchemist’s Diary (2001), and the forthcoming These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit (2022). His children’s book, The Three Lucys (2016), received the New Voices Award Honor. He also edited Inclined to Speak (2008), an anthology of contemporary Arab American poetry with Fady Joudah. He is also a series editor of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. His honors include a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lucille Joy Prize in Poetry from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, the John Clare Prize, and the Arab American Book Award. Additionally, he has taught at a number of colleges and universities, including Queens College, Jersey City University, the City University of New York-La Guardia, the University of Texas at Austin, Trinity University, and Our Lady of the Lake University. He currently teaches in the Honors College and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston.
afikra has a series of fabulous interviews that can be found here: https://www.afikra.com/events/

Kaveh Akbar: In‑Person & Online
2021-10-15 19:30 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? Pilgrim Bell, Kaveh Akbar’s newest collection of poems, meditates on this question, taking readers on a spiritual journey through disavowal, divinity, and belonging.
With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Akbar’s brilliant poems unfold in the empty space where song lives, teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness.
Q&A with Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.

Donkeysaddle Projects Presents: The Vignette Collective's Workshop Reading
2021-11-12 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
As we continue to bear witness to the attacks on Palestinian lives, we understand how present the voices of our artists are and need to be. During these times we look to artists within impacted communities as beacons for cultural transformation. Donkeysaddle Projects’ Vignette Collective strives to connect the decolonial struggles of Black, Palestinian, Chicanx, and Turtle Island’s Indigenous communities. Through poetry, personal essays, and performance, we look at the impacts of settler-colonization and celebrate the resilience of those who have been in struggle. And we want to share it with you.

That’s why we’re inviting you to join us on November 12th at 8pm ET for our 2nd virtual fundraiser featuring the work-in-progress from the Vignettes Collective. Get another sneak peek of our creative, collaborative process with our collective of artists, activists, and organizers, while raising funds to support Palestinians in urgent need in Gaza. We hope to see you there!

The Ground and the Sky: Creative Writing Workshops for Youth with Ibtisam Barakat & Naomi Shihab Nye
2021-11-14 11:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
THIS is a TWO PART SERIES
2 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov. 14, 2021
AND
2 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021
Online via Zoom
FREE with RSVP
What are we rooted in? What can we imagine? Come ready to open the doors of your imagination for your dreams to touch where no one has yet reached. Renowned writers Naomi Shihab Nye and Ibtisam Barakat will lead this two-part writing workshop for high school students – no experience necessary!
This online workshop series, taking place via Zoom, will help to envision, create and accomplish new greatness. The past is mapped out, but that map contains many mysteries, worth exploring, and the future needs a blueprint. Bring a blue-ink pen with you if you wish, for navigation of the great sea of ideas and possibilities. We are appreciating the past and going to the future, together!
Students who attend will receive a gifted copy of Naomi Shihab Nye’s 19 Varieties of Gazelle by mail (within the U.S.) after the workshop!
For questions, e-mail Kathryn Grabowski at KGrabowski@accesscommunity.org.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Palestinian American, is the Young People’s Poet Laureate of the United States, through the Poetry Foundation. She has worked all her life as a visiting writer in hundreds of schools and communities. Her most recent books are Everything Comes Next, Cast Away, The Tiny Journalist, which won both Texas poetry awards (Texas Institute of Letters and Writers League) and Voices in the Air – Poems for Listeners.
Ibtisam Barakat is a Palestinian American bilingual poet and author, and the 2020 Sheihk Zayed Book Award laureate of young people’s literature. SZBA, for the Arabic language, is comparable to the Nobel Prize, for the English language. Ibtisam is the founder of Write Your Life seminars that she has led for audiences of all ages around the world, in both English and Arabic. Her vision is a more representative human history that includes everyone’s stories in their own voices. Ibtisam’s memoirs about growing up in Palestine, Tasting the Sky, a Palestinian Childhood, and Balcony on the Moon, Coming of Age in Palestine, won multiple honors, including the International Reading Association’s Best Book Award, the Middle East Book Award, and the Arab American Book Award. Her most recent books include The Lilac Girl, SZBA 2020 winner, and The Jar that Became a Galaxy, title book for the National Reading Campaign of Palestine 2019. She has two new books forthcoming in 2021. www.ibtisambarakat.com

The Almond Blossom Knows Its Life Is Short: Poetry of Palestinian Women in Translation
2021-11-16 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Description: In this class we will explore a selection of translated poetry by Palestinian women. How do these poets tend to loss? How do they engage with their interiors while living in varying states of siege, occupation, or exile? What are their obsessions? Which mythologies do they reject and which others do they remake? Together we’ll read across generations, including poems by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Asmaa’ Azaizeh, Ahlam Bisharat, Laila Al-Sa’ih, and Fadwa Touqan. Join us to reflect together on theme and structure; to encounter texts in the original Arabic alongside the translations; and to end with a writing prompt inspired by our exploration.
Format: Online via Zoom
