Poetic Reflections: Al Andalus and Pakistan by The Pakistan Club
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Event Details
The Pakistan Club @ the University of Chicago, in collaboration with the Divinity School, the Committee on Southern Asian Studies (COSAS) and the South Asia Language and Area Center (SALAC), is proud to host Shadab Zeest Hashmi, a Pakistani-American poet.
The author will read poems that offer perspectives on conflict, coexistence and identity in the story of Al Andalus and Pakistan. In her award-winning book Baker of Tarifa, she revisits Muslim Spain (or "Al Andalus" 711-1492), tracing the history of interfaith tolerance in this legendary civilization through poems featuring historical and imaginary figures. Hashmi's new collection Kohl & Chalk delves into questions of identity, as she explores Pakistan's colonial history, the ravages of the Soviet war in Aghanistan— which she observed as a child growing up in Peshawar— and the post 9/11 wars during which she has been raising her own children. The poetry reading will be followed by a Q & A session.
Program
6:00 PM-6:30 PM: Networking
6:30 PM-7:30 PM: Poetry Recitation
7:30 PM-8:30 PM: Q & A
Speaker Profiles
Shadab Zeest Hashmi (Speaker)
http://www.shadabHashmi.com
Shadab Zeest Hashmi's Baker of Tarifa, a book based on the history of interfaith
tolerance in Al Andalus (Muslim Spain), won the 2011 San Diego Book Award for
poetry. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart prize multiple times,
translated into Spanish and Urdu, and have appeared in Poetry International,
Vallum, Nimrod, The Bitter Oleander, The Cortland Review, The Adirondack
Review, Atlanta Review, Pakistaniaat, Hubbub, RHINO, Journal of Postcolonial
Writings, Spillway, and are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Drunken Boat and
other places. She represents Pakistan on UniVerse: A United Nations of Poetry,
and has taught in the MFA program at San Diego State University as a writer-
in-residence. She is a guest columnist for 3 Quarks Daily. Kohl and Chalk is her
new book of poems.
KOHL & CHALK:
Kohl & Chalk is that response in the voice of a daughter, a mother, a global citizen."— Poetic Matrix website.
Questions
K. Rizwan Kadir, MBA '97, '97
8474141583
Other Information
BAKER OF TARIFA:
There was a time when the people of the three Abrahamic faiths made
bread in the same ovens and drank from the same wells— together they
created a civilization where cities were filled with libraries and lit with street
lamps, where Eastern learning led and became wedded to the West, and
art and science thrived. Baker of Tarifa is a book of poems based on the
history of Islamic Spain (711- 1492) otherwise known as Al Andalus. It tells
the story of how this extraordinary civilization was cultivated, how it was
ultimately destroyed, and how Andalusis finally parted ways in bitterness.