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Join our monthly online series “Words for Palestine” which aims to center and highlight Palestinian voices during this devastating time. Featured readers this month include Priscilla Wathington, Rasha Abdulhadi, Tariq Luthun and Zaina Arafat.

“Words For Palestine” is co-sponsored by Mizna, Palestine Writes and RAWI, and is free with RSVP. We encourage you to make a donation to support the work of Palestine Legal and Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). Palestine Legal is an organization dedicated to protecting the civil and constitutional rights of people in the U.S. who speak out for Palestinian freedom. PCRF is the primary humanitarian organization in Palestine, providing crucial and life-saving relief and humanitarian aid in Gaza.

About the Readers

Priscilla Wathington is a Palestinian American poet and editor who lives in the Bay Area. She is the author of the chapbook, Paper and Stick (Tram Editions), which draws from her past human rights and humanitarian work with NGOs such as Defense for Children International – Palestine, Norwegian Refugee Council, and the Arab American Action Network. Her poems have appeared in Adi Magazine, Gulf Coast, Michigan Quarterly Review, Salamander and elsewhere. She sits on the board of the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI) and is an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College.

Rasha Abdulhadi is calling on you—yes you, even as you read this—to renew your commitment to refusing and resisting genocide everywhere you find it. May your commitment to Palestinian liberation deepen your commitment to your own. May your exhaustion deepen your resolve and make you immovable. May we all be drawn irresistibly closer to refusals that are as spectacular as the violence waged against our peoples.

Tariq Luthun invites you to join him in demanding an end to the siege on Gaza and the illegal military occupation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. Luthun— a Detroit-born, Dearborn-raised community organizer and award-winning poet—calls for the right of return and land back for indigenous peoples globally. Luthun received his MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and currently serves as a board member of The Offing. His first collection of poetry, How the Water Holds Me, is available via Bull City Press.

Zaina Arafat is a Palestinian-American writer and the author of You Exist Too Much, which won a 2021 Lambda Literary Award and was named Roxane Gay’s favorite book of the year. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Granta, Harper’s Bazaar, New York Magazine, The Believer, VICE, BuzzFeed, The Washington Postand elsewhere. She teaches at Barnard College and The School of the New York Times and currently lives in Brooklyn, where she is at work on an essay collection.

For questions, e-mail Rewa Zeinati at rzeinati@accesscommunity.org