refugees

Demetria Martinez reads work from The Devil's Workshop (2002), Breathing Between the Lines (1997), and Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana (2005). She also reads a short story from the manuscript of The Block Captain's Daughter, which would go on to be published by University of Oklahoma Press in 2012.

Khaled Mattawa reads poems from a manuscript in progress, including a poetic sequence on human trafficking and global migration. Some poems would go on to appear in Fugitive Atlas (2020). 

Daniel Borzutzky reads from his translations of Raúl Zurita's Song for His Disappeared Love (2010) and Country of Planks (2015), as well as Galo Ghigliotto's Valdivia (2016). He also reads from his own poetry collection Lake Michigan (2018) and a manuscript titled Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018.

Carolyn Forché reads excerpts from her memoir What You Have Heard Is True (2019) and poems from her collection In the Lateness of the World (2020).

Aria Aber reads from her collection Hard Damage (2022), which meditates upon the Afghan refugee experience and familial relationships, particularly the one with her mother. Aber concludes the reading with two uncollected poems that center on grief and mortality. This reading was originally given alongside Shayla Lawz as part of the Morgan Lucas Schuldt Memorial Reading Series.

Mai Der Vang reads from her second book, Yellow Rain (2021), a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize. In this collection, Vang reinvestigates the "yellow rain" incident, in which a chemical biological weapon was unleashed upon Hmong refugees as they fled Laos near the end of the Vietnam War. Grounded in a documentary approach to poetry, Vang's poems center the testimonies of the Hmong, whose voices were erased in the subsequent geopolitical fervor around the investigation. This reading was originally given alongside Anthony Cody.