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Layering prayer with code, How to Make an Algorithm in the Microwave brings supposedly unassailable technological constructs like algorithm, recursion, and loop into conversation with the technologies of womanhood, whether liner, lipstick, or blood. Exploring the relationships we have with our devices, Salameh speaks back to the algorithm (“a computer’s admission to blood”), which acts simultaneously as warden, confidant, and data thief. Here Salameh boldly examines how an Arab woman survives the digitization of her body—experimenting with form to create an intimate collage of personal and neocolonial histories, fearlessly insinuating herself into the scripts that would otherwise erase her, and giving voice to the full mess of ritual.

Maya Salameh is the winner of the 2022 Etel Adnan Prize. Her poems have appeared in POETRY Magazine, The Rumpus, Mizna, ANMLY, AGNI, and Asian American Writer's Workshop, among others. Salameh is the author of the chapbook rooh (Paper Nautilus Press 2020).

“HOW TO MAKE AN ALGORITHM IN THE MICROWAVE upends every way I’ve ever used the term ‘multilingual.’ These poems crackle with language, a cacophony of Arabic and English and French and code and formal invention and song lyrics and photographs and footnotes. Maya Salameh gives everything a voice—speakers across many comings of age, cities, pop stars, the digital world—and the result is lush and orchestral, searing and intelligent and incredibly fun. We are so lucky. I am so lucky, to read and learn from Maya Salameh, luminous inventor, luminous interrogator.”
-Safia Elhillo