February 16, 2017 — Immigrants Wanted: Mideast Poets
Immigrants Wanted: Mideast Poets. Tonight’s reading features poets from the Mideast, reading in their native tongues of Farsi or Arabic, as well as in English translation. Thank you to Faiza Sultan for assembling tonight’s readers, who come from I Iran, Iraq, and Jordan/Palestine. See the Facebook invitation.
Readers are Mitra Lotfi Shemirani (Farsi and English), Faiza Sultan (Arabic and English), and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (Arabic and English)
Mitra Lotfi Shemirani is an Iranian-American poet, writer, and journalist. She has translated German and Farsi poetry and prose into English and Farsi. She has also been translating works of different Farsi modern poets in English. She is currently working as an art educator and a freelance editor.
Faiza Sultan is from Iraq. She is president and CEO of Translation4all, Inc, serves on the board of directors for the American Translators Association, and is publisher and editor of Darsafi, LLC. She has published two poetry books, Let Us Give War a Chance and I Am a Visitor on this Earth.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is an American poet of Palestinian, Syrian, and Jordanian heritage. Her first book of poems, Water & Salt, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2017. She won the 2016 Two Sylvias Chapbook Prize for Arab in Newsland, forthcoming in March 2017. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Blackbird, Crab Creek Review, Drunken Boat, and the Rumpus. Visit her website at www.lenakhalaftuffaha.com.