Step 1: Donate to Sameer Project here (sugg. donation $60).

Step 2: Register for “Verses of the Watched” here.

This workshop examines the rich lineage of poetry that interrogates how surveillance shapes issues of national security, personal privacy, and the visibility of Arab and other marginalized communities. We will analyze the craft of those under watch, studying how they write about, against, and under surveillance.

We will explore the work of poets including Solmaz Sharif, Claudia Rankine, Tariq Dobbs, Maricela Guerrero, and Khadijah Queen, paying attention to poems that both mask and reveal, encode and declare. From the stark halls of military bases to the intimate corners of private life, these poets challenge the boundaries of visibility and silence. Bring your eyes & your watching back. 

Maya Salameh is the author of HOW TO MAKE AN ALGORITHM IN THE MICROWAVE (University of Arkansas Press, 2022), winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize, and the chapbook rooh (Paper Nautilus Press, 2020). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, The Offing, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, AGNI, ANMLY, and the LA Times, among others. She can be found @mayaslmh or mayasalameh.com. She dreams of a free Palestine.