Join us for a live virtual reading with George Abraham, Diamond Forde, Nabila Lovelace, and Fargo Tbakhi. The Open Door series presents work from new and emerging poets and highlights writing instruction and poetic partnerships. Each event features readings by two Midwest writers and two of their current or recent students or writing partners.

George Abraham (they/them/theirs or he/him/his) is a Palestinian American poet, writer, and engineer who was born and raised on unceded Timucuan lands (Jacksonville, FL). Their debut poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry) won a Arab American Book Award and a Big Other Book Award, and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. He is a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers, and recipient of fellowships from The Arab American National Museum, The Boston Foundation, and Kundiman. His poetry and nonfiction have appeared in The Nation, The Paris Review, The American Poetry Review, Mizna, and elsewhere. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard University, they are currently a Litowitz MFA+MA Candidate in poetry at Northwestern University.

Diamond Forde’s (she/her/hers) debut collection, Mother Body, is the winner of the 2019 Saturnalia Poetry Prize. Forde has received numerous awards and prizes, including a Pink Poetry Prize, a Furious Flower Poetry Prize, CLA’s Margaret Walker Memorial Prize, and third place in Frontier Poetry’s New Poets Award. A Callaloo and Tin House fellow, Forde’s work has appeared in Boston Review, Honey Literary, Obsidian, Massachusetts Review, and more. She serves as the contributing editor of Southeast Review, the fiction editor of Nat. Brut, and she lives in Asheville with her partner and their dog, Oatmeal.

Nabila Lovelace (she/her/hers)is a first-generation Queens born poet, whose people hail from Trinidad & Nigeria. Sons of Achilles, her debut book of poems, is out now through YesYes Books. You can currently find them kicking it in Tuscaloosa.

Fargo Nissim Tbakhi (he/him/his) is a queer Palestinian performance artist, a Taurus, and a cool breeze. Find more at fargotbakhi.com

Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This reading will include live captioning and ASL interpretation. If you require any other accessibility measures, please contact us by emailing events@poetryfoundation.org. To find out more about Zoom’s own built-in accessibility features, please visit https://zoom.us/accessibility.

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Tags: Chicago, Diamond Forde, Fargo Tbakhi, George Abraham, Nabila Lovelace, Near North Side, Open Door Reading Series, Poetry Foundation