Register here [1].
Join us for a live poetry reading and artist talk featuring Palestinian American poet Zeina Azzam
About this event
Poetry is one of the most popular art forms in Palestine’s history. It serves as an act of remembrance, preserving Palestinian memory even as we have been exiled from our homes and barred from returning. Poetry is also a form of resistance, giving a voice to those whose voices are not heard, and power to the powerless. Palestinian poetry was spearheaded by Palestinian poets Mahmoud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim, Fadwa Tuqan, and Tawfiq Zayyad in the middle of the 20th century, but remained relatively unknown to the Arab world until Ghassan Kanafani published an anthology of Palestinian resistance poetry in 1966. This anthology presented to the world insight into the thoughts and feelings of Palestinians in exile, igniting the spark that lit the fire for future Palestinian poets to continue to tell their stories to this day.
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.
Dagmar Painter is the founder and Curator Emerita of Gallery Al-Quds, the art gallery of The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, an art gallery featuring the work of Arab-American and Middle East contemporary artists, with a special emphasis on Palestinian art, located in Washington DC. In January 2020 she celebrated her 100th exhibition at Gallery Al-Quds.