Radical Poetry Reading with Sahar Muradi

Lebanese poet Zeina Hashem Beck’s third full-length poetry collection, O, was published by Penguin Books in July 2022. Her collection Louder than Hearts won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. She’s also the author of 3arabi Song, winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook prize, _There Was and How Much There Was, a 2016 Laureate’s Choice selected by Carol Ann Duffy, and To Live in Autumn, winner of the 2013 Backwaters Prize. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The New York Times, Poetry, Ploughshares, World Literature Today, the Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. Educated in Arabic, English, and French, Zeina has a BA and an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut.

Poet Hyejung Kook’s work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in The Ilanot Review, POETRY Magazine, Pleiades, Bear Review, They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets, and elsewhere. Other works include an essay in The Critical Flame and a chamber opera libretto. Born in Seoul, Korea, she now lives in Kansas with her husband and their two children.

Artist, educator, mother, wife, activist and entrepreneur Jasmin Eli-Washington was born and raised in The Bronx and Harlem and she/they are still living and working in New York City. Jasmin chooses to use the pronouns she/they in reference to her various personalities developed to cope with the trauma of motherhood, marriage, divorce, and living while Black and female. Her/ Their work is currently focused on painting images and messages of love, tolerance acceptance, pride and don wearable items of clothing. This wearable art is inspired by social interaction, life, death, teaching, learning, pride, prejudice, abundance and scarcity.

Poet Mina Zohal’s work can be found in Apogee, Makhzin, The Brooklyn Rail, BAX 2018 and others. Her chaplet Narenj ha was released by Belladonna chaplet series 2017. She has also done several collaborative projects with other writers and visual artists.

Poet Sahar Muradi is author of the collection Octobers, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the 2022 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She is also author of the chapbook [ G A T E S ], the hybrid memoir Ask Hafiz (winner of the 2021 Patrons’ Prize for Emerging Artists from Thornwillow Press), and the chaplet A Garden Beyond My Hand. She is co-author of A Ritual in X Movements and co-editor of One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature. Sahar is a Sustainable Arts Foundation Finalist and a NYFA Poetry Finalist. She is co-founder of the Afghan American Artists & Writers Association, directs the arts education programs at City Lore, and dearly believes in the bottom of the rice pot.