How can the work of writers contribute to building sustainable and inclusive futures for our communities? How can the work of community organizations contribute to creative work? And how can the arts serve as a tool of empowerment, liberation, and solidarity? Literary organizations like Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Kundiman, Indigenous Nations Poets, Fire & Ink, Mizna, and Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI) were convened with the goal of creating spaces for marginalized writers to develop their craft and find community and connection with one another.

This reading and conversation features George Abraham (executive editor of Mizna and Kundiman Fellow), Samiya Bashir (founding organizer of Fire & Ink and Cave Canem Fellow), Kimberly Blaeser (founding executive director of Indigenous Nations Poets), Cathy Linh Che (executive director of Kundiman), Deborah Paredez (co-founder of CantoMundo), and Glenn Shaheen (president and executive director of RAWI). They will explore what it means to lead, create, and write, centering the idea “not one without the other.”

The Gathering is a celebration of queer BIPOC community with programming focused on nurturing the mind, body, and soul. We will kick off this cultural symposium with an intimate conversation with Marvin K. White and Samiya Bashir.

Doors Open at 6:30 p.m.

Pay what you can. Suggested $25 donation.

Books by the authors will be available for purchase from Bookwoman.

Afterparty to follow at Esquina Tango.

Refreshments will be provided by Mashae's Catering.

SLACKERS :: 3 GenX Poets on Place & Power
:: A Winter Solstice Special Event ::

Samiya Bashir (Executive Director, Lambda Literary) invites Carmen Gimenez (Publisher, Graywolf Press), and Adrian Matejka (Editor, Poetry Magazine) to share current work, sip cocktails, and talk intersectional power, presence, and taking their place at the helm of institutions which once stood as gatekeepers to their exclusion.

Poetry Reading: Samiya Bashir and John Freeman

Readings by Samiya Bashir and John Freeman, with a reception and book signing to follow. Please see below for more information about the authors.

Please join us for this year's SALONE - A multi-media performance event showcasing the work of renowned actors, artists, choreographers, composers, directors, performance artists , poets, puppeteers, who have each been awarded the prestigious Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome.

Join Lambda Literary's 50-50 Campaign! https://bit.ly/5050Lambda

Text FIFTY11 to 44-321 to help Samiya Make the Magic for Lambda Literary!

Register for the Launch Party :: 50-Something Grandly! https://bit.ly/50-50-PARTY

"Something eerie ties us to animals," Barry Lopez wrote in "Arctic Dreams," "sometimes the animal pulls you backward into it. You share hunger and fear with them like salt in blood." What does it feel like to live in this shared space with animals, to worry about it, to love it, to mourn its destruction. The latest issue of Freeman's literary annual is dedicated to asking these and other questions, to evoking the rich and often mysterious shared topography of space we occupy with animals. From the rats who will likely outlast us, brilliantly evoked in Samiya Bashir's poem, to rabbits bred for sport or worse, as described in Tess Gunty's dark short story. Join Bashir and Gunty for a reading from their pieces and discussion around the ethics, psychology and power of animals in our lives.

Forge Ahead :: New Poetry :: Samiya Bashir and poet Trevino Brings Plenty share new work in support of Portland arts and artists!

Join Samiya Bashir, Aricka Foreman, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and host Iain Haley Pollock as they read poems from their kitchen tables or similar domestic spaces, amid the joyful chaos of their lives. (Fully expect the poets' partners, children, pets, etc., to show up.)

Kitchen table because that's where all the best happens.

Kitchen table because the public discourse and protestors in the street are vital but these smaller, more intimate conversations also have the power to transform.

To change social systems, we need to change ourselves, and maybe for you these poems can be a means to that end.

A Virtual ZOOM Visit! Sign up online here.

The New Writing Series is brought to you by the Literature Department and the Division of Arts and Humanities For more information contact Professor Kazim Ali.

The New Social Environment#136

Radical Poetry Reading with Erica Hunt

Featuring political poetry read by Samiya Bashir, Mihee Kim, Jena Osman, Dior Stephens, and Yanyi.

Literary Power Hour
(Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon)
Thursday, June 25
7:00 p.m.

An entertaining virtual event to raise critical funds for PPAO and Portland African American Leadership Forum Action Fund.

Featured writers: Samiya Bashir, Bella, Claire Rudy Foster, Cheryl Strayed, Lidia Yuknavitch, Reema Zaman, Leni Zumas

Come online Friday and let's create poetic space TOGETHER!
National Poetry Month continues and I am honored to get to move through the walls and the wires to spend some time with YOU!

Black History Month Florence 2020: il festival di febbraio

Torna a Firenze la kermesse dedicata alla storia e alla cultura ‘afro’: ogni giorno un evento diverso in 40 luoghi della città

26 febbraio ore 18 -19.30 – CORONAGRAPHY, performance di Samiya Bashir; evento promosso da Murate Art District in collaborazione con Syracuse University Florence, The American Academy in Rome, Villa Romana e BHMF.

Poetry by Samiya Bashir and Nicole Sealey — in English and Italian translation — and conversation with Damiano Abeni and Moira Egan

Cinque Mostre 2020: Convergence
An annual exhibition of projects by the Rome Prize and Italian Fellows and invited artists.
Curated by Elizabeth Rodini and Ilaria Gianni
Opening: February 20 

Azza Abo Rebieh, Samiya Bashir, Garrett Bradley, David Brooks, Matthew Brennan + Eugenia Morpurgo, Dina Danish + Jean-Baptiste Maître, Rä di Martino, Corinna Gosmaro, John Jesurun, Pamela Z, Giovanna Silva

Monday, February 3, 2020, the American Academy in Rome hosts a Shoptalk with Alexis Wang, Donald and Maria Cox/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Rome Prize Fellow in Medieval Studies, and Samiya Bashir, Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize in Literature, a gift of the Drue Heinz Trust.

Livestreamed @ https://livestream.com/aarome

If you're at #AWP19, join me for VONA’s Literary Arts Portland Reading on March 29, at 7pm. Celebrate VONA's 20th Birthday with me + David Mura, Dickson Lam, Faith Adiele, Beth Bich Minh Nguyen,, Aya de Leon, Samiya Bashir, Alan Pelaez, Reyna Grande JP Juliet P. Howard, and Elmaz Abinader.