BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.2.3.1//EN TZID:America/Detroit X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Detroit BEGIN:VEVENT UID:36067@arabamerica.com DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260427T173000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260427T190000 DTSTAMP:20260323T220354Z URL:https://www.arabamerica.com/events/ruins-and-other-poems-by-samer-abu- hawwash-translating-palestinian-poetry-in-a-time-of-genocide-2/ SUMMARY:Ruins and Other Poems by Samer Abu Hawwash: Translating Palestinian Poetry in a Time of Genocide DESCRIPTION:PHILADELPHIA\, PA\n\n \;\n\nIn these poems\, Samer Abu Haww ash stands upon ancient and modern ruins\, engaging with the archetypal Ar abic qasida and its echoes in the present\, set against a backdrop of exil e\, displacement\, and genocide.\n\nThe site of the ruin\, the journey\, a nd the return home are the three movements of the archetypal Arabic form w ith which Samer contends in his book-length poem. Writing in and from the moment of crisis\, the poet keeps returning to ruins\, forfeiting the jour ney and the hope of return and resolution\, rearranging the elements of po etry in the Arabic tradition in search of closure or consolation—in a ge sture\, a shadow\, a memory\, an object. The five poems that follow “Rui ns” in this book root themselves in monumental loss. When “it no longe r matters if anyone loves us” and “we will lose this war\,” nothing remains but the poem\, the witness\, the signpost in the wasteland of hist ory.\n\nBIOS\n\nSAMER ABU HAWWASH (b. 1972) is a Palestinian poet\, novel ist\, editor\, and translator\, born in Lebanon. He is the author of 10 po etry collections including his debut collection Life is Printed in New Yo rk (1997)\, I’ll Kill You Death (2012)\, One Last Selfie with a Dyin g World (2015)\, Ruins (2020)\, and From the River to the Sea (2024). He is also the author of three works of fiction: The Journal of Photogra phed Niceties (2003)\, Valentine's Day (2005)\, and Happiness or A Ser ies of Explosions that Rocked the Capital (2007). Abu Hawwash is the tran slator of more than 20 volumes of poetry and prose from English including works by William Faulkner\, J.G. Ballard\, Sylvia Plath\, Charles Bukowski \, Langston Hughes\, Jack Kerouac\, Yann Martel\, Hanif Kureishi\, Denis J ohnson\, Marilynne Robinson\, and many others. He lives in Barcelona\, Spa in where he currently works as the director of the Culture &\; Society section at Almajalla Magazine.\n\nHUDA J. FAKHREDDINE is a writer\, tran slator\, and Associate Professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Metapoesis in the Arabic Tradition ( Brill) and The Arabic Prose Poem: Poetic Theory and Practice (Edinburgh University Press)\, and the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry (Routledge). Her translations include Jawdat Fakhreddine’s poet ry collection Lighthouse for the Drowning (BOA Editions)\, The Universe \, All at Once: Selections from Salim Barakat (Seagull Books)\, and Pale stinian: Four Poems by Ibrahim Nasrallah (World Poetry). She is also the author of a book of creative nonfiction\, Zaman saghīr taḥt shams thā niya (A Brief Time Under a Different Sun) and a poetry collection\, Wa m in thamma al-ālam (And Then the World). She is co-editor of Middle East ern Literatures.\n\nNICOLAS-BILAL URICK is a Ph.D. student in the depart ment of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures specializing in modern Arabi c Literature. He is particularly interested in the relationship between Ar abophone multilingualism and the Mahjar movement’s development of dist inct literary forms. He holds additional interests in modern Persian liter ature\, Biblical and Christological influence in Arabic and Persian poetry \, and transnational literary salon culture. His study of the Mahjar lik ewise informs an interest in the broader history and contemporary reality of Arab-American literature.\n\nBilal works in Arabic\, English\, French\, and Persian. He likewise reads in Russian and Spanish.\n\nBilal holds a B achelor of Arts (B.A.) with Highest Honors from Swarthmore College in Swar thmore\, Pennsylvania\, where he wrote his Honors thesis on the migration of Romantic literary forms across Arabic and English cartographies.\n\nLEO TIDMARSH received his BA in French and Arabic from the University of Oxf ord in 2024. His dissertation there was entitled 'Resistance to political incarceration during the "Years of Lead": Writing the body and temporality in Youssef Fadel and Abdellatif Laâbi\,' in which he employed close rea ding and elements of queer theory in analysing the ways in which Moroccan authors\, writing in French and Arabic\, presented non-normative images of temporalities and corporealities to challenge state oppression.\n\nThroug hout his studies\, Leo has taken an interest in modern Francophone and Fre nch literature\, particularly in the 20th century\, focussing on texts by Algerian\, Moroccan\, and Caribbean authors reacting to violence\, both p resent and historical\, and looking at the ways in which such acts of viol ence have been imagined and presented differently across various forms. Le o is looking to continue to expose tactics of resistance in carceral texts written in French and Arabic across North Africa and the Arab world\, put ting to use both queer and feminist lenses.\n\nhttps://mec.sas.upenn.edu/e vents/2026/04/27/ruins-and-other-poems-samer-abu-hawwash-translating-pales tinian-poetry-time ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.arabamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2 026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-23-at-17.52.34.png LOCATION:Fisher bennett hall\, FBH 401\, 3340 Walnut Street \, Philadelphia \, PA\, 19104\, United States GEO:39.952522;-75.191711 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=3340 Walnut Street \, Phila delphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Fisher ben nett hall\, FBH 401:geo:39.952522,-75.191711 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Detroit X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Detroit BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260308T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR