April 1, 2026
Mizna Presents: National Poetry Month Prompts
Exploring language, form, & visuality
What happens when we let our mother tongue bite, lick, swallow, or spit an English poem? What does it mean for a writer to have multiple languages they live in, around, and against?
Reflecting on Mizna’s history of experimentation, disobedience, and playfulness—and during National Poetry Month and Arab American Heritage month—this Mizna Online feature presents ten archival works and thirty original prompts curated by NNAAC Fellow Layla Faraj, exploring language and form in our community. All prompts are inspired by the poetic works published in this feature, and all materials are meant to encourage a bartering, breaking, or bending of language. They are divided into four sections, one for each week.
Week One, Lexicality and Visuality: poems by Andrea Abi-Karam and Danielle Badra
Week Two, Translinguistics: poems by Banah el Ghadbanah, Emily Ahmed, and Dina Omar
Week Three, Struggle as Language: poems by George Abraham and Nancy Agabian
Week Four, Complicating Linguistic Traditions: poems by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha and k. Eltinaé
Starting April 1, 2026, check here every Wednesday as we add links to the weekly Poetry Month prompts!
Week One: Lexicality and Visuality
For week one, Mizna begins our column on language and form with an experimentation of the visual, the borrowed, and the seemingly misunderstood.
Read the reference poems and prompts here.
Week Two: Lexicality and Visuality
For the second week of National Poetry Month, Mizna is highlighting grammatical, poetic, and oral storytelling structures as they move/are moved between languages.
Read the reference poems and prompts here.
Week Three: Struggle as Language
Living with/in multiple languages is to attempt to transmit feelings, ideas, traditions, and histories into another tongue. Continuing National Poetry Month, the accompanied original prompts push Mizna’s readers to convey struggle with, through, and as language.
Read the reference poems and prompts here.
Week Four: Complicating Linguistic Traditions
How can we reject, complicate, or interrogate otherwise unquestioned linguistic traditions? The two poems featured from the Mizna archives detail a search for what lies hidden behind the words and letters we use. Celebrating the final week of National Poetry Month, the accompanied original prompts complete the thirty day poetry challenge.
Read the reference poems and prompts here.
Closing Thoughts: The Cat’s Cradle, or How to Play a Tongue
To mark the end of National Poetry Month, column editor Layla Faraj offers closing thoughts on the why and how of the editorial project.
Read the reference poems and prompts here.
Layla Faraj is a Syrian-American writer, translator, and editor who received her B.A. in English Literature from Barnard College. Her own work has appeared in LitHub, ArabLit Quarterly, The New York Times, Even/Odd Studios, and elsewhere. In addition to her work with Mizna, she is currently translating a Gazan diary with HarperCollins.
Artwork by Layla Faraj.
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