Date/Time
Date(s) - 07/13/2024
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

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Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

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Free USD
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Saturday, July 13 · 7 – 9pm PDT

Beyond Baroque and The Markaz Review is proud to present Weaving a World: Arabic Poetry in Translation. Titled after the Sudanese poet Al-Saddiq Al -Raddi’s poem, Weaving a World, the evening of readings in The Wanda Coleman features authors Zeina Hashem Beck, Zêdan Xelef, and Maya Salameh. This event is part of the Poetry Coalition’s slate of programs in the spring and summer that reflect the transformative impact poetry has on individual readers and communities across the nation, and is made possible (in part) by the Academy of American Poets with support from the Mellon Foundation.

The event also includes a fundraiser for the Sudan Solidarity Fund organized by the Sudan Solidarity Collective, a volunteer-based group based in Toronto providing relief efforts in those parts of Sudan that have been hardest hit by militarised state violence. To Dontate directly, please click here.

Enjoy a reception before and after the readings.

Doors Open: 6:30 PM I Readings: 7:00 PM

Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her third poetry collection, titled O, was published by Penguin Books in July 2022. It won the 2023 Arab American Book Award for poetry and was named a Best Book 2022 by Lit Hub and The New York Public Library. Her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts(Bauhan Publishing 2017), won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. Poet Naomi Shihab Nye wrote about this book, “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.” Zeina is also the author of two chapbooks: 3arabi Song (Rattle 2016), selected from 1720 manuscripts as winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize, and There Was and How Much There Was (smith|doorstop 2016), chosen by Carol Ann Duffy, who praised her “remarkable gift for storytelling” in this pamphlet rich with women’s voices. Her first book, To Live in Autumn (The Backwaters Press 2014), centered on Beirut, won the 2013 Backwaters Prize.

Zêdan Xelef is a poet, translator, organizer, and archivist. They grew up in the Yazidi community of Shingal Mountains where they herded four goats with three other cousins. They are the co-creator of Tew Tew, an oral history and oral traditions archive with a mission to preserve the endangered Yazidi oral traditions in response to the Yazidi genocide. They’re the writer of A Barcode Scanner (Kashkul Books 2021/Gato Negro Ediciones 2022) and co-editor and co-translator of the upcoming Something Missing from This World: Contemporary Yazidi Poetry (Deep Vellum, August 2024). Photo by Rae Rad.

Maya Salameh is a Syrian- and Lebanese-American poet from San Diego, California. She is the author of HOW TO MAKE AN ALGORITHM IN THE MICROWAVE (University of Arkansas Press, 2022), winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize and finalist for the California Book Award, as well as the chapbook rooh(Paper Nautilus Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in POETRY, The Rumpus, AGNI, ANMLY, Asian American Writer’s Workshop, and the LA Times, among others. She has performed her work at Carnegie Hall, the DeYoung Museum, and her mother’s kitchen.

About the Markaz Review

The Markaz Review (TMR) is a nonprofit publication and virtual center that seeks to promote the writers, artists, filmmakers and other creative people of the greater Middle East, generally thought to include the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Africa. As an online community, TMR is a creative and literary destination that seeks to erase the boundaries between peoples and celebrate culture.

This event is Free & In-Person at Beyond Baroque. Masks are encouraged while inside our center.

Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow attendees, or performers.

Because this is a free event seating is limited. Please arrive early.

Livestream: If you can’t join us in-person the event will be livestreamed on Beyond Baroque’s YouTube channel at the scheduled time of the event.