Jun
25
11:30pm
my sky is on my shoulders: a gathering of Palestinian poets
By Charis Books and More/Charis Circle
Charis presents my sky is on my shoulders, a gathering of four Palestinian poets, to recite their poems and discuss all between earth and sky. We mark this long moment of upheaval by lingering with the lyric, knowing that this deepens recognitions only skimmed in tallies and headlines. Featuring: George Abraham, Zaina Alsous, Deema K. Shehabi, and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.
George Abraham (they/he) is a Palestinian american poet and writer from Jacksonville, FL. Their debut collection Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020) won the Big Other Book Award, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry. He is a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI), a recipient of fellowships from Kundiman and The Boston Foundation, and winner of the 2017 College Union Poetry Slam Invitational's Best Poet title. Their work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Baffler, The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, Mizna, and elsewhere. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard University, Abraham currently teaches at Emerson College, and will be a Litowitz MFA+MA Candidate at Northwestern University in the fall.
Zaina Alsous is a writer and movement worker in South Florida. Her first full-length collection A Theory of Birds won the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize, and was published by the University of Arkansas Press in the fall of 2019
Deema K. Shehabi is the author of Thirteen Departures From the Moon and co-editor with Beau Beausoleil of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here (PM Press), for which she received the Northern California Book Award's NCBR Recognition Award. She is also co-author of Diaspo/Renga with Marilyn Hacker and the winner of the Nazim Hikmet poetry competition in 2018.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. Her first book, Water & Salt (Red Hen Press) won the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry. Her first chapbook, Arab in Newsland, won the 2016 Two Sylvias Press Prize. Her chapbook, Letters from the Interior, (Diode 2019), is a finalist for the 2020 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize.
This event is free and open to all people, especially to those who have no income or low income right now, but we encourage and appreciate a solidarity donation in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Charis Circle's mission is to foster sustainable feminist communities, work for social justice, and encourage the expression of diverse and marginalized voices. https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/CharisCircle?code=chariscirclepage
We will be archiving this event and adding closed captioning as soon as possible after airing so that it will be accessible to deaf and HOH people. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to [email protected]. We are actively learning the best practices for this technology and we welcome your feedback as we begin this new way of connecting across distances.
By attending our virtual event you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to [email protected] immediately.
hosted by
Charis Books and More/Charis Circle
share