Nathalie Handal and Deema K. Shehabi

17 MAY 2012 — thursday

Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Nathalie Handal, Poet in Andalucía, and Deema K. Shehabi, Thirteen Departures From the Moon, Moe's Books, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, 7:30 (510/849-2087, www.moesbooks.com; wheelchair accessible, ASL interpreters for the deaf and hearing impaired may be requested a week in advance by email, editor@poetryflash.org)

More about the readers
Nathalie Handal's new book of poems is Poet in Andalucía. Rattapallax Magazine says, "Poet in Andalucía—about Spain, about the Middle East, about shared destinies and hopes—touches me deeply; it reminds us of what's inconsolable, of what's multiple, of what's irreducible, and what's simultaneous." Among her other books is the poetry collection Love and Strange Horses and the anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond, which she co-edited. She is a Lannan Foundation Fellow, recipient of the Alejo Zuloaga Order, and winner of a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Book Award. Deema K. Shehabi's first book of poems is Thirteen Departures From the Moon; Naomi Shihab Nye says, "…Deema Shehabi's map is huge and deep as she weaves the threads of landscape, earth and sky, into a cloth wide enough to cover everyone. Her grandfather was the mayor of Gaza—in his light, in the light of her precious mother and her people's ongoing pain, with a stunning lyrical gift of seeing and knowing, she walks the wide world through language that redeems and blesses." She is also co-editor of the anthology Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here (poems and essays celebrating Baghdad's oldest bookselling and publishing street) to be published in June 2012.