Conducted by poet, Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, the theme for the workshop will be informed by "Displacements and the Impact of Partition." The traumatic effects of displacement from home, whether forced or not, live on in people's memories and are felt by future generations. Within South Asia, the impact of the 1947 Partition is still felt. Even today there are current conditions of war or strategic policies that are creating masses of displaced populations all over the world. From Internally Displaced People (IDP) of North and South Waziristan, to stateless people in Bangladesh, the human cost of having to change homes is enormous. This will be a creative exercise in writing poetry about human connections and lessons we can learn from the impact of displacements from what was once "home", including as a result of Partition in South Asia. For those interested, there will be an opportunity to share the poetry created in the workshop with the general public at a performance held the next day at the gallery. 

Friday, June 3, 2016
6:30 - 8:30pm

Please join us for a poetry performance exploring the impact of displaced populations, including as a result of the 1947 Partition in South Asia. 

Sham-e-Ali Nayeem is a poet & visual artist who was born in Hyderabad, India and raised in both the UK and the US. Recipient of the 2016 Loft Literary Center Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship, her poetry has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. Sham-e-Ali has performed her poetry both locally & internationally including at the Oxford Literary Festival and is currently working on her forthcoming book of poetry, The City of Pearls (UpSet Press 2017). 

Featured Poet : Mir Elias, née Mehrin Masud, is the pen name of Mehrin ("Mir") Masud-Elias. Mir was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, came of age in the United States and found her voice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which, for the moment, is home. Mir's poems about her coming of age, the immigrant experience, love, loss and aging are often influenced by the Sufi poetic tradition, as well as Western myths, folk and fairy tales. Mir's poetry has been published in Nothing But Red, a collection of artwork, poetry and short stories about violence against women, and in recent online and print issues of Papercuts, the bi-annual literary magazine of Desi Writers Lounge, an online workshop for writers of South Asian origin and writing on South Asia. She has written two volumes of poetry, Glass Dreams and Sign Language and is working on her third volume, In The Shining Dark.