Events

Event details

Mizna welcomes Gazan poet Yahya Ashour to the Twin Cities for a reading and conversation with local writer Sun Yung Shin. After the reading, the artists will engage in a discussion and audience Q&A, followed by a reception catered by Shish. Doors will open at 6 PM, and the event will begin at 6:30 PM with a reception to follow. Suggested donation $10, all proceeds will go to Yahya Ashour, a Gazan poet who is currently stranded in the US.

What: Poetry reading with Gazan poet Yahya Ashour and local writer Sun Yung Shin
When: Thursday 1/25, 6:30 PM (doors at 6), Reception to follow
Where: Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave S #200, Minneapolis, MN 55415
RSVP REQUIRED

Mizna staff had the honor of first meeting Yahya Ashour at the 2023 Palestine Writes Conference, at a bilingual poetry reading with Mizna executive editor George Abraham alongside poet and scholar Huda Fakhreddine. In the weeks that followed, Israel began its genocidal war on Gaza, leaving Ashour stranded in the US.

Of Ashour’s work, George Abraham says: “It is a deep honor to be supporting a brilliant, rising talent like Yahya. When Noor Hindi and I read his work for our upcoming Haymarket Palestinian poetry anthology, we fell in love with the philosophical, epigrammatic wisdom of his verses. Here is a lyricism that manages to find love poems in the smallest details—‘not merely rain, but a shredded sky, not merely roses but seedlings.’”

As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting Palestinian artists, especially those affected by the genocide in Gaza, we are creating a Mizna Residency program to support the living needs and artistic development of artists in our community. We are excited to welcome Yahya Ashour as our inaugural Artist-in-Residence. Ashour will be awarded a living stipend and, in addition to this Artist-in-Residence reading, will have new poems and an interview featured with Mizna Online in the coming weeks.

Programs such as the Mizna Residency comprise part of Mizna’s ongoing commitment to support Palestinian writers in an increasingly hostile national landscape. Against the silence and censorship of Mizna’s funding entities such as the Poetry Foundation, Mizna remains steadfast in our commitment to our community.

SPONSORS

This event is co-presented with Loft Literary Center and the following University of Minnesota departments and groups: Arab Student Association, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature. Major support for Yahya Ashour’s residency and his visit and reading is made possible through funding from the Poetry Foundation to Mizna, in spite of the Poetry Foundation’s censoring of anti-Zionist and Palestinian voices. Please see our full statement of transparency on our Poetry Foundation Funding here.

ABOUT THE READERS

Yahya Ashour was born in Gaza City. He is a touring poet and an award-winning author. He was a 2022 Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa. He has one poetry collection and one children’s book published in Arabic, and he contributed to several printed anthologies and online journals worldwide. Ashour’s writings have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Finnish. He delivered several creative writing workshops for children and youth in Gaza.

Sun Yung Shin is a poet, writer, and cultural worker. She is the editor of What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories on Food and Family and of A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, author of poetry collections The Wet Hex; Unbearable Splendor; Rough, and Savage; and Skirt Full of Black. Her forthcoming picture book, Revolutions are Made of Love: Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs, co-written with Mélina Mangal, will be published in 2025. She is a teaching artist with the Minnesota Prison Writing Project and elsewhere. She is a former MacDowell fellow and has received grants from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She lives in Minneapolis where she co-directs the community organization Poetry Asylum with poet Su Hwang.