Workshop — 6:30 pm, with Ana Paula Cordeiro
This free workshop will have attendees create a soft cover pamphlet using pages with oversized handwriting.
Poetry reading — 7:30 pm, with Hala Alyan, Noor Ibn Najam, Zeyn Joukhadar, and Kamelya Youssef.
Sponsored by Mizna, Minnesota-based forerunner in the Arab American arts scene, publishing a lit + art journal since 1999, producing the Twin Cities Arab Film Fest, and other events centering around Arab artists.
Poetry is Not a Luxury is titled after Audre Lorde’s 1977 essay on the intersections of creativity and activism that were not only essential to her own work but to a diverse group of feminist thinkers at the time. Recognizing that both creative work and activism are driven by subjectivity, Lorde argues that for women poetry is not a luxury but a vital necessity, as it provides a framework through which survival and the desire for change can be articulated, conceptualized, and transformed into meaningful action. Poetry is Not a Luxury features artists who approach book arts in a similar way, namely as experimental media that foreground subjectivity and lend to intimate aesthetic experiences with the aim of drawing attention to sociopolitical issues.
