Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and its Diaspora

Join us for Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and its Diaspora, A Reading with California Poets/Translators on Saturday, February 12, 2022. Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University, the Poetry Center - San Francisco State University, and Diaspora Arts Connection proudly present this reading by Armen Davoudian, Farnaz Fatemi, Gary Gach, Zara Houshmand, Persis Karim, Mojdeh Marashi, and Sholeh Wolpé.

This event is free and open to the public but you must register by following this link: https://sfsu.zoom.us/.../register/WN_iLOlpvVvTNmkO3SUEX0fVw

About the readers:

Zara Houshmand is an Iranian American writer whose work bridges cultural divides and includes poetry, theatre, memoir, and literary translation. Her most recent book is Moon and Sun (2020), translations of Rumi’s rubaiyat. www.zarahoushmand.com

Armen Davoudian is the author of Swan Song, which won the 2020 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. His poems and translations from Persian appear in AGNI, The Sewanee Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. He grew up in Isfahan, Iran and lives in California, where he is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University.

Shole Wolpé: Award-winning poet, artist, and literary translator Sholeh Wolpé was born in Iran and grew up in Trinidad and the U.K. before settling in the United States. She earned an MA in radio, television, and film from Northwestern University, as well as a master of health sciences degree from Johns Hopkins University. Wolpé is the author of the chapbook The Outsider (2018) and several collections of poetry.

Mojdeh Marashi: Mojdeh Marashi is a designer, artist, writer, and translator. Mojdeh was born in Tehran, Iran and moved to San Francisco Bay Area in 1977. She now lives and works in Palo Alto, California where she works as the Managing Director at Blurred Whisper, an Idea and Design studio in Palo Alto, California, which Mojdeh co-founded in 2002. Mojdeh studied Art at California College of Arts (CCA) and later at San Francisco State University where she earned her Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts and a second M.A. in Creative Writing.

Gary Gach: Gary Gregory Gach is an American author, translator, editor, teacher and poet living on Russian Hill, San Francisco. His work has been translated into several languages, and has appeared in several anthologies and numerous periodicals. He serves on the International Advisory Panel of the Buddhist Channel, a Malaysian Buddhist news website. He currently hosts Haiku Corner for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Farnaz Fatemi: Farnaz Fatemi is a founding member of The Hive Poetry Collective, which produces podcasts and poetry-related events in Santa Cruz County. Her poems and lyric essays have recently appeared in Catamaran Literary Reader, Tahoma Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, Tupelo Quarterly, SWWIM Daily, Grist Journal and several anthologies. Her book, Sister Tongue, won the 2021 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize (selected by Tracy K. Smith) and is forthcoming in Fall 2022 from Kent State University Press.

Persis Karim: Persis Karim is a poet, editor and professor of Comparative & World Literature at San Francisco State University. Her poetry has been published in Reed Magazine, The Raven's Perch, The New York Times, The Broken Spine and other publications. She is also the director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University.