Poets Dunya Mikhail and Jennifer Jean in poetry and book reading events

October 8 at 6:30 pm at the Somerville Public Library 79 Highland Ave, Somerville, MA 02143

October 9th at 7pm at the Salem Athenaeum in Salem, MA.

Event is free and open to the public.

The Salem Athenaeum, Her Story Is, the Center for Arabic Culture, and the Creative County Initiative are pleased to present a reading and talk by award-winning Iraqi poet, novelist, and journalist Dunya Mikhail, and American poet and translator Jennifer Jean. Dunya will read from her new book, Tablets: Secrets of the Clay (New Directions). Jennifer, a Salem resident, will discuss and read from her forthcoming books, Where Do You Live? أين تعيش؟ (Arrowsmith Press) and Other Paths for Shahrazad: a Bilingual Anthology of Poetry by Arab Women (Tupelo Press).

During the Oct. 9 events, Oud music will be performed by Ghassan Sawalhi.

Dunya Mikhail is an Iraqi American poet and writer. She is a laureate of the UNESCO Sharja Prize for Arab Culture and has received fellowships from the United States Artists, the Guggenheim, and Kresge. Her honors also include Arab American Book Award, and UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. Her books include Tablets: Secrets of the Clay; The War Works Hard (translated by Elizabeth Winslow), shortlisted for the International Griffon Poetry Prize; Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea, won the Arab American Book Award. The Iraqi Nights received the Poetry Magazine Translation Award (translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid), and In Her Feminine Sign, selected as the Wild Card Choice (UK), was chosen by The New York Public Library as one of the ten best poetry books of 2019. Her non-fiction The Beekeeper (co-translated with Max Weiss), was a finalist for the National Book Award and was shortlisted for PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award. The Bird Tattoo, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. She currently works as a special lecturer of Arabic and poetry at Oakland University in Michigan. For more information, visit: http://www.dunyamikhail.com/ 

Jennifer Jean’s poetry collections include VOZ, Object Lesson, and The Fool. Her resource book is Object Lesson: a Guide to Writing Poetry. She’s co-written and co-translated the forthcoming collaborative and bilingual collection Where Do You Live? أين تعيش؟ (Arrowsmith Press, 2025) with Iraqi poet Hanaa Ahmed. As well, she’s edited the forthcoming anthology Other Paths for Shahrazad: a Bilingual Anthology of Poetry by Arab Women (Tupelo Press, 2026). Her poetry, prose, and co-translations appear in POETRY, Rattle Magazine, The Common, Los Angeles Review, Terrain, and On the Seawall. She’s received honors, residencies, and fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, the Academy of American Poets, the Mass Cultural Council, DISQUIET, and the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jennifer is an organizer for the artist collective Her Story Is, core faculty for Solstice MFA, and she is the senior program manager of 24PearlStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center’s online writing program. For more information, visit: http://www.jenniferjeanwriter.com

• For more information about Her Story Is, a collective of women writers and artists based in Iraq and the US, visit: https://www.fortpointtheatrechannel.org/her-story-is

• For more information about the Essex County Community Foundation’s Creative County Initiative: https://www.eccf.org/arts-and-culture/

• For more information about The Salem Athenaeum: https://salemathenaeum.net/