Spring Has Sprung! Let the Poetry Love Bloom!
Invitations to much poetry, interviews, readings, and more!
Spring has finally sprung in New York City after the longest, most grueling winter I’ve experienced in this city in my 20 years here. I have also moved for the fifteenth (??) time in that span as of this month, and am now a new resident of Sunset Park! I am grateful to live near a beautiful park and in yet another vibrant immigrant neighborhood where I may have opportunity to refine my Spanish, learn a little Mandarin for the first time, and contribute my time and energy to the existing and expanding tight-knit communities that have always attracted me to this area.
Warm weather also ushered a number of exciting developments. I have the honor of reading for NYPL for the first time, have a published interview out in the world, and am scheming with organizers and collaborators on a number of events designed to bring more poetry to more communities of people and inspire us to work together in more meaningful, sustainable ways.
The more I think about interdependence as the only possible avenue for survival, the more I think about the difficulty of decolonizing the mind from individualist and isolationist frames of mind. The pressure to ‘get one’s shit together’ (as if anyone ever has it together) leads people to, so often, apologize for asking for help or assume that needing or wanting support counts against one’s inherent value as a person. I fall victim to this constantly, and living with a partner for the first time since 2021 has illuminated for me how damaging it is to believe that we are meant to be self-sufficient. We are built for coregulation. I am grateful for the ways that spring and summer make collective care and community work more accessible to all, and look forward to inviting you, those of you kind enough to read this little labor of love, to things that bring hope and joy.
Below you will find links to online and IRL access to tonight’s NYPL program, interviews with me and with others, and other upcoming events. Enjoy! And until next time.
Announcements, Readings, Interviews, and more
TONIGHT: World Literature Festival Panel: This year’s New York Public Library World Literature Festival is hosting a panel called “New Voices of the Bengali Diaspora: Poetry Reading and Discussion” at Parkchester Library in the Bronx, featuring Jafreen Uddin as moderator and me and Amatan Noor as poets who will share their work, ask one another questions, and take audience questions. Join us! Both in-person and virtual tickets are free!
Pain Baby Book Club launched on Monday, April 21 and was a lovely success. We discussed a handful poems curated from Hala Alyan’s The Moon That Turns You Back, looking at how the body and land become indistinguishable from one another in meditations on diasporic Palestinian existence, exile, family, love, and illness. The next Pain Baby Book Club takes place on May 21, 6:30 pm ET - 7:30 pm ET, and we’ll be discussing Zeina Hashem Beck’s O. No one is required to have read the book to attend, and participation is free! Register here.
The brilliant Yomalis Rosario has launched a beautiful new interview series, Freedom Ways, through her Substack Literary Liberation, and did me the honor of featuring me! Read the interview and follow the series for more insights on the relationship between poetry and liberation for a wide variety of artists and writers.
I have the great honor of joining Hunter Hodkinson as permanent co-editor of the small but mighty Dead End Zine! I learned so much in our co-curation of the upcoming issue themed “CAPACITY,” and am proud to invite everyone East Coast-based to the launch! Look at this exceptional lineup! Please join us on May 10th, at 7pm ET at Idiot Machine at 16 Lawton St, Brooklyn, NY.
Writers & Books Interview with Diana Khoi Nguyen: I had the great pleasure of interviewing my 2024 Periplus mentor and instructor at Randolph College’s Creating Writing Program, Diana Khoi Nguyen about her gorgeous book, Root Fractures for Writers & Books! The conversation is now available on YouTube. Please write and subscribe to support Writers & Books and their wonderful series!
